It seems like Ning, the free network that allows users to create their own, customised, social media presence – with full forum, video, gallery, chat and blogging functionality – is to close its doors to all users not paying for its premium service.
Although there are other similar platforms (Dolphin immediately springs to mind) Ning is a fantastic tool – really easy to use and deceptively powerful. I currently run several Nings including the Da Vinci – The Genius microsite for Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry and have nothing but good things to say about what the platform lets you do.
I predict a massive exodus as current users, many of whom were operating out of the education, not-for-profit or charity sector, find somewhere else to connect with their communities.
What sparked the company’s philosophical shift? Well, the recent departure of co-founder Gina Bianchini may have something to do with it – a leaked internal memo was forwarded to industry blog TechCrunch explaining their plans (which also include cutting 40% of staff).
A paid-for Ning was one of those things people always talked about but it still comes as something of a shock – albeit one informed (and softened) by the recent talk of paywalls on major on-line news sites – it seems the next stage in the evolution of the internet is going to be defined by this struggle between free and paid for content.
In this case the real losers are going to be those who have invested massive amounts of time creating content and building communities on a platform they are not going to be able to afford to pay for.
We all need to remember when creating on-line presences using pre-existing tools that although we are uploading our own content we could easily lose it at any time.
Do these companies owe us anything or is this just a risk we take and a price we pay when we don’t create our own sites from scratch? Thoughts welcome.
