Introducing New Sign-up Options

[Phil McCluskey]

Our Product Roadmap this year is rolling along smoothly. Today, we're happy to be releasing another project that we think will be very useful: a whole bunch of new sign-up and sign-in options. Let's get right to it.

Let Members Join with LinkedIn and Windows Live

We've heard a lot of requests from Network Creators who want additional sign-up/sign-in options. You'll be happy to hear that Social Sign In now includes both LinkedIn and Windows Live, which will be great news for business-focused networks and many international networks (e.g., Windows Live is huge in Brazil). The set-up for these will be very similar to Facebook and Twitter options; as the Network Creator, you'll need to create an app for this purpose by entering your own LinkedIn or WindowsLive credentials.

Ready to create yours? Here are the Help Center articles for LinkedIn and for Windows Live.

Sign-up redirection

Want to send new members somewhere besides the Main Page — where they currently land after signing up? This is another request we've heard over time — to be able to redirect members to their own profile page or to a very specific page that a Network Creator has created to serve as a welcome landing page. Now, Ning Plus and Pro Network Creators have the option to send new members to either the Main Page, their own profile page (MyPage), or a custom URL.

This custom URL can be an external URL if you need to integrate your network with another web property. For example, Pro networks may want to send new members to an external web application that makes use of the Ning API to retrieve that new member's information and register them before sending them back to the network.

We hope this will give you a few added options for customization of your new-member experience. Check out this Help Center article about these new redirection options for all the details.

Mix, match or remove sign-up / sign-in

You will now see that your options for sign up and sign in are split, and that "native" network sign in and sign up are included as options. This will allow you to turn off specific services for new members while allowing existing members to continue to sign in to the network, or to do things like limit all new members to Facebook or LinkedIn if it better matches your network's theme and aims, or if you'd like your members to be a little less anonymous than they otherwise could be.

There's an additional option here, one that won't appeal to most Network Creators but that can be powerful for sites that are, for example, less about socializing and more about publishing. That option is to completely remove all sign-ups. If you make this choice, all invite options will be removed and no new members will be able to sign up. This might be an attractive choice if your network is focused on publishing, for example, and not social networking.

Want the full skinny on this new sign-up/sign-in split? Read all about it in this Help Center article.

[Denis]

Thanks Phil,

I bet that day will come someday.

[Illya]

Ning team I love you all!!! These updates are great!!!! Thanks a million!!!!

[Eric Suesz]

Glad you like it! I know a lot of people wanted LinkedIn sign-in in particular. Happy we could get to that for you. 

[Boris Agranovich]

How do I fill in the Java Script API domain field?

[Patrick Chappelle]

The instructions are here and the window that opens at your site while you install the app provides you with that info Boris.

[Lora]

Love the new sign up redirection add. One of the things that my newbies have a hard time with is navigating and understanding what we do on my site, so I created a FAQ's page and redirect them to this page.

Thanks so much Ning!

[Phil McCluskey]

Nice to hear Lora! This was one of the primary uses we had in mind for the redirection tool.

[Lora]

Mission accomplished! :)

[RF]

Hey, I have a question, does the new member re-direct only work for networks that do not approve members? I am curious because my network approves all member profiles before they go live on the site, so I was wondering if this new member re-direct works also after the member has been approved?

[Phil McCluskey]

Hi Mystic,

Yes; the redirection will not work for networks using member moderation. We'll be releasing an update that removes the redirection part of the page to avoid confusion here.

Thanks,
Phil 

[RF]

I can be slow at times lol...does that mean that then members will be able to be directed to a custom page even if member approval is on?

[Phil McCluskey]

Hi Mystic,

Redirection doesn't work if member moderation is turned on, so you can either moderate members, or use the redirection, but not both.