four months since any product update

[Rowald]

Keeps me wondering what's happening over there at Ning. Can we expect anything this week?

[Eric Suesz]

Actually, I believe we released something in August. 

Nothing this week, but we're working on some new things. Can't say more yet, but I will when I can.

[SweetPotato]

I hope it is something that was on the roadmap rather than something new that isn't. :-)

[Anthony]

Hay Eric, 

Can you give some info on the big release...Maybe a little hint.? Or when this big release will happen.

[Joel D. Galbraith]

Eric, I'm a fan of your community Scoop.it site.  Keep it up. Thx.

[Jordon McGee (Jords)]

It's the quiet before the storm. The storm of new stuff :)

[Armani Rouse]

no offense but we need features that would suite every network no matter how "niched" your network may be. Categories are always awesome but what we truly need are "dislike" options and social things like smileys where the latest activity are. Simple things like how facebook has this "mood of the day" thing and everyone seems to use it at some point or another. We need things to engage our users to want to come back and make new friends. Facebook and twitter give you options and make it easier to navigate by showing you "people you may know" and etc. What if we were shown "people we may want to be friends with" its something that when new users join they are instantly engaged because they have some friends to add. Every social network I can think of always first shows you some friends you may want to add, its genius because right off the back you have activity. This is what makes you log back in to that site, because eventually the friends you added would send you things and now you have notifications waiting to be answered. In simple:

Better notifications, nothing spammed, simple and clean like facebook notifications, the top bar of your page is usually lit up with red notifications

more engaging latest activity, allow users to post smileys as their status, it could serve as "smiley your mood" or something like that

"people you may want to friend" when new users sign up, the same way the site always shows different members when you refresh your sites page, it should just generate some random people in a box that gives them some friends to add

[Armani Rouse]

oh yes, the dislike button! for certain not everything that gets added should be or would be "liked" its very nonchalant and childish to have everything liked. 

oh and GIFTS SHOULD BE FREE! I see some of the gifts there and I actually found the same exact picture used for the welcome mat gift in the gift store by googling "welcome" and thats when it hit me! My good friend George Compton helped me develop some virtual gifts for our members on my network and their awesome and easy to use. Now it should be up to us NC if you want to charge for access to the virtual gifts page you develop then you can control the prices for gifts. Anytime someone has to pay for something no matter how cool it is theres some sort of reluctance and looking at the ning gifts its clear these were simply images that were programmed into the network so when use them they send out notifications like so and so gave such and such a red ribbon. Only advantage is the public notification so other members now can be enticed to try out the gifts but once they see they have to pay they leave the page. The virtual gifts store on my site is about 83 cents a month to use...NING DID YOU READ THAT? ITS REAL! Dont charge us for things that clearly should be free...im almost certain that if your development teamed sat down and said "what have we programmed that doesnt get used as much as WE'D like it to?" GIFTS! would be the #1 answer...they should be free their simply images that can be found online

[Armani Rouse]

heres the welcome mat I mentioned...clearly the same one were charged to send as a gift on our networks!

[Patrick Chappelle]

If "liking" everything is "childish", one would assume the same applies to "unliking". Then there's the smiley thing. Personally, I like them and use them. But they are definitely a juvenile feature.

[SweetPotato]

You find 'liking' things childish but want smileys?
Personally, I couldn't care less about smileys but I would love to see blog improvements and third party commenting.

Notifications would be nice but not before the things we've been expecting as per the roadmap. I know the roadmap is an evolving thing but some things seem to gestate for too long.

I think paid access might be number one, sadly. :-(

[Writer Chick {Diane}]

I agree, SP.   Smileys??????????  LOL  JT's smileys are good enough.  Let's roll out some meaty improvements.  It seems like nothing that has come out lately has been of benefit to me.  I've gotten rather depressed about it lately.  :(   I want to see some versatility in groups, and some organization of the blog area.  Photo categories would be awesome for me.  And OMG, our inbox is so antiquated that it's ridiculous, especially for the admin and creator of the site.  No search function for our mail, no way to sort into folders.  UGH. It's an organizational nightmare.

[Tyler Durbin]

I certainly would not want a dislike button...