Ning Update: Rolling Out Full Details May 4th

[Jason Rosenthal]

Hi Everyone,

As many of you know, we made a decision yesterday to focus 100% of the company on enhancing the features and services we offer to paying Ning Creators. The tens of thousands of you who already use our paid
service represent over 75% of our traffic, and we’ve heard repeatedly
from you ways that we can deliver a killer service to help make your
Ning Network more effective. Some examples of things we are working on
that you’ve asked for include new APIs, a new mobile experience and new
advertising and revenue opportunities.

As part of this change, we’ll be phasing out our free service.  On May 4, 2010, we will share with you all of the details of our new offering, including features and price points, through a series of blog
posts, emails, and conference calls. We recognize that there are many
active Ning Networks for teachers, small non-profits, and individuals
and it's our goal to have a set of product and pricing options that will
make sense for all of them. For Ning Creators using our free service who
choose to move to another service, we will offer a migration path and
time to make that change. We will still continue to allow free trials
and test networks on the Ning Platform.

We look forward to talking to you further on May 4th.

[Jane Lucienne]

I agree. That was a pretty tacky business decision.

[Alan]

Agreed, Brad. A direct communique would have been better than finding out about it from one of my site members.

However, I think the Ning team is in a no-win situation on this one. No matter how they spread the news, whether it could have been done better or not, I think the same amount of hackles would have been raised and complaints been voiced, just differently phrased.

Given that they just lost about half of their staff, I'm willing to cut them some slack on the communication gaffe since they're all probably feeling a tad sucker-punched over the whole mess, and quite possibly not making the same choices they would have made if things had been different in their offices.

[Star-Dust]

Ning should have made all the plans and off the drawing board before letting the emloyees go. And get the news out before it leaked out. Guess they trusted their employees to keep quiet.. .Normal human mistake.We all trusted someone at one time or the other, and that trust was broken.

[Scott]

Ning is really in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation here. There are people who are pissed at Ning for saying something, and people pissed at them for not saying enough. They gave information and a promise of a date with more official answers. This is a big policy change for a multi-million dollar company. There is a lot to consider, and I don't think waiting 2 weeks is unreasonable.

Somebody leaked this information before they were ready to explain everything. Let's not get carried away because of a mistake.

Now, if on May fourth Ning announces Virtual Gifts 2.0 and says that's their solution I'm going to eat my words, but I don't think that's the case. If they are that dumb they wouldn't have become the industry leader.

Let's hope they get their priorities in order and wait and judge the product by its merit and value for us and our members. Until then, reserve judgment.

my two cents,
Scott

[Alan]

It wasn't "leaked", the internal memo from the CEO was posted openly by the VP Advocacy for Ning, in an effort to be transparent.

What it did, though, is create a lot of stress/drama for creators and their site members, unfortunately. I'm just sitting back and waiting, I've managed to quell the aura of panic on my own site at least.

[MelissaNJ]

LMAO @ gifts 2.0. I bet they will!

[AnitaC]

I finally figured out how to do certain things on my network and now this. I wonder if all the hacks we've learned along the way... using the analytics box.... etc., will be stripped from us. I had plans for my network, customizations and what not and now I have to put on hold because I don't know if what I do will be eliminated or not. Not to mention the fact that I have 6 sites which means I'll have to pay big time for 6 high school alumni sites.

[Jennifer Carbonneau]

I'm sure it has been said, but I need to say it again. The "announcement" of eliminating free Ning services without the final plan for fees will cause creators to find alternatives without waiting for the possibilities of maintaining their ning sites.

[FrogDogz]

For Ning Creators using our free service who
choose to move to another service, we will offer a migration path and
time to make that change.

You mean the same way that you offered a 'migration path' and 'time to make a change' to the creators of your first version Ning networks?

Oh, right.

You didn't offer ANY of that to your early adopters, did you? No, we just woke up one day to find all of our networks were 'temporarily off line'. Here we are, what? A year later? And mine are still 'temporarily off line', and still no one has sent me the XL files from my original networks.

Lack of faith in your competency much?

[MelissaNJ]

Good to hear from a long time user. Thanks for the info!

[MelissaNJ]

Keep me updated!

[Jennifer Carbonneau]

This is important to know. Thank you.