We launched Ning 3.0 just over two weeks ago. While the overall market response has been really awesome, we have – based on the feedback here on Creators – somewhat underestimated the confusion and potential pain this new generation platform could create for some of you.
We value and carefully consider your input, and have decided to offer more flexibility and appreciation for you all as existing Ning customers.
Grandfathered in at 2x Member Limits
Rather than differentiate plans by features, storage and bandwidth, we set member limits for each plan. Number of members is a visible and intuitive measure of Network Creator success. We believe that you deserve a break when the time comes to upgrade. Therefore, existing Ning Networks will be grandfathered in at 2x the member limit of the new plans.
When you upgrade from Ning 2.0 to Ning 3.0, the Basic plan will support 2,000 members and the Performance plan will support 20,000 members. According to our data, this means that less than 1% of all our existing customers should see any price increase.
3-Month Post Upgrade Grace Period
We have also decided to give you an extra three more months after you upgrade before applying any member limits. And we will provide you with tools during and after the upgrade process to remove long-time inactive members from your network and clean house.
Limitless Moderators
Several of you voiced concerns with limiting the number of moderators. Recruiting active members to help moderate is a powerful tool for NCs to effectively manage their community and reward their most engaged members. We agree and we will be changing our pricing plans to reflect this. All Ning 3.0 subscribers can have an unlimited number of moderators (capped by your members plan limit). Moderators can be given full moderation privileges (approve, feature, edit, delete or suspend) for multiple features, content type and/or members. However the Ning 3.0 plans include a limitation on the number of Administrators—those with full access to the design, layout and settings of your network— Administrators will be limited to 2, 5 and 10 respectively.
'Powered by Ning | Mode Social' Footer Requirement
As we have shared in our FAQs and in several discussion topics, displaying "Powered by Ning | Mode Social" in network footers is important for the health of our business. While we recognize that some of you will decide to leave the platform on account of it, we will not waive this requirement. However to mitigate the impact for some of you, we do intend to put an affiliate program in place that will allow you to gain some value for clickthroughs and referrals. We’ll also provide more flexibility in terms of where and how to display the logo (options such as centering it).
Ning 2.0 Upgrade, Migration and Retirement Timeline
As we have announced, we are working on a seamless upgrade process for Ning 2.0 Networks and plan to release it this summer. Once the upgrade process is available, Ning 2.0 Networks will have at least one year to move to Ning 3.0. We will confirm the exact schedule for the Ning 2.0 retirement when we officially release these migration tools. Before we officially release these tools, we are planning to work with many of you on a beta program for this key feature to make sure that it works as well as can be expected and minimize all changes and concerns for the vast majority of our existing customers.
We hope these changes address most of your concerns and give you a bit more confidence in our own ability to listen to you all. We appreciate the time and energy you pour into your communities, and are committed to delivering you a great and viable platform for years to come.
Thank you all for your feedback; we couldn’t do this without you. If you haven’t already, please take advantage of our offer to create a Ning 3.0 Sandbox Network. We would love for you to experience the redesign firsthand and get a jump-start on developing your Ning 3.0 Network. Don't forget to drop by and let us know how it's going!
NOTE: Post Edited on 4/29/14 to reflect Glam Media's name change to Mode Media.
Replies
+1 Perrie
Strumelia, you have my +1.
I hate it when people use the "negativity" stance to take the supposed higher ground on forums. Almost inevitably, it is those that quote negativity that are the ones doing the bullying in my experience. It's also a way of closing out arguments and view points other than their own. Long live free speech and long live realists, that's my view. Also I feel the ones most likely to defend Ning and its ridiculous practices of late are either developers who have a financial vested interest in seeing the platform succeed or those who live and breathe coding.
When Ning come up with the goods, perhaps those die hard fans will have a smidgen of cause to shout out about negative posts. Until then, negative posts equals the facts on the ground as far as I can see.
You know you are a braver person than me to say that, but you are right, the people that are shouting down the obvious are the ones that are making a lot of money from Ning or its less experienced creators, like with migration troubles, or designers and coders,
God bless them all i say, you cant knock their motives because if ning goes pop then so does their livelihood that they have spent years building up.. Its no wonder they are taking it all a bit hard and in reality are fighting harder to save a company's reputation for their own reasons, A company that isn't showing much survival instinct of its own. to save itself.
This is why no one here can just have a serious debate without falling out, simply because you have two strong camps.
1) pointing out the bleeding obvious camp
2) The Ning coders, designers and those making load a dosh from years of SEO on adverts and such like..
Not a good recipe from constructive dialogue..
One side is going. For goodness sake whats up with you lot cant you see whats happening and the other side is going,, No No No, shut them up i will lose my business, my extra money have to start from scratch if this is true. you lot shut up now..
Boom!
u must be crazy if you think weere making a ton of money yes i know of 1 guy that was making 50 grand a mointh and wasnt satisfied with that and wanted to charge more...i thought it was rediculouse
me im not even covering costs
yes before i lost alotta trafic from google updates and later due to 2.0's crappy mobile site mAkinmg 1/2 to 85% of my trafic leave discusted with 2.0's mobile disaster i was makinmg aboiut the same as i get from disability
but double what disability pays is still next to nothimng... not enough to live on unless yoir like me and usedd to not spending a cent on anything (i once went 4 years carrying the same 16 cents in my pocket and used absolutely no moneyt at all for those 4 years)
i work 20 hours a day on average helping ppl on my site when its busy
at an average pay rate of 50 cents an hour when it was making the most money it ever made
so dont give me no bs about how were making a ton of money and that6s the only reason we supoport it
3.0 is ..or would be.. just the best optrion out there
if they would just finnish the damn trhing already
now my sites no longer paying for itself.. and my mobile trafics growing daily wich is killing the overall trafic and making it earn less
the 1 and only rreason id complain about how nings doing things is i need 3.0 today not next yeart so i am looking into a self hosted option
well the slowness and lack of communication
bit i will tell you now what i recently learned
the 3.0 archiver will be ready soon
events are being worked on now too
when the archivers finnished they will have a much better idea when events and vids and the next migrationtool will be rerady
so they will be abole to post a rough guess estimate on when the platform will be ready for migration soon
i could not get a guarantee that it would be within 2 months however so thats why im experimen ting with other optionsd bcause i desperately need a mobile freindly site today..2 months is the longest im willing to suffer and waitr
however if the archivers donne in the next few weeks and ifthey say they can complete 3.0 in 2-3 months thgen i will bve staying as running a self hosted option is so much more of a hasslewhen sm allthings go wrong
and trying to develop yoiur own spam filters is goingto be anightmare
and btw i spent nearly 10 granbd that i couldnt afford ..didnt pay rent fort the past 8 months i spentthat on seo trying to regain my trafic just hoping to squeeze an extra hundred a month out of ads evenbtualy just so it would start to pay for itself again
I have been getting notifications in my email regarding this discussion and I just wanted to say it is beginning to sound very much like bullying, especially from one person in particular, If Terry said that is what happened then maybe that is what happened so why not just give him a break!
Thanks - but don't worry about me - I can give as good as I get if I felt someone was trying to bully me. But this isn't the place for that. My point was Ning will do whatever they want - they don't (or didn't) care. What happened to me happened months ago and probably happened to others we don't know about. But maybe - just maybe they have seen the error in the way and decided not to force everyone to 3.0 - at least not yet. Maybe back then they thought they were ready and found out they weren't so they are giving others more time - maybe too many people like me were walking away and they decided they couldn't lose that much business - if people are allowed to renew their 2.0 sites now good for them - I just won't trust Ning with my business anymore.
Fear is a terrible thing Terry, specially if you have a Ning 2 which may be close to renewal, a story like this will put the fear of god into those people.
I too believe you, it fits ethically with a company who are playing some silent crafty game with creators.If they cant get you to migrate one way, (eg voluntary) then they will get you to do it other ways, like stopping support for N2 and apps until its barely functioning, or telling you on renew dates that its time to move to N3..
why people find that so hard to believe is beyond me.
apps were never supported by ning they were always supported by the app creators thats what 3rd party apps are the responsibility of the 3rd party
This drama is ridiculous. RI DIC U LOUS. All this in-fighting amongst each other. Thanks Ning.
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