not a white label solution

[Kris]

Before starting our network we looked at all the others from Ning to KicksApps. We can’t speak for anybody else but we have over $50k into our networks so we could have easily gone with a white label solution. We decided to go with Ning not because it was FREE but because we felt it was an overall better solution and for a fee you could "Remove Ning Promotional Links" and it was made clear by the CEO Gina Bianchini's last year " If you are already removing promotional links, then you won’t see the Ning brand show up on your social network".

We pay to “Remove Ning Promotional Links” because, if there are 100 people/sites who can simply copy and paste our content and more less duplicate what we are doing then it dilutes our efforts and at the end of the day you’re just going to end up with a bunch of ineffective probably abandoned sites. We'll be at events and I'll hear people talking and someone will says “what’s that site?” and many times I hear someone say “oh that’s just another one of them sites” and in our market you can’t even compare us to the other site as we are doing more traffic in a day than most of them are doing in a year. So it becomes annoying as it takes more effort, time and money to compensate just for these poorly attempted sites.

We understand that it’s not 100% white label solution but Ning needs to understand and look at the NCs who are spending time, effort, and money to build successful networks. We don’t need our efforts diluted by overnight copy cats who probably aren’t’ willing to put in the effort, time or money that we have and are. As new features have been rolling out we’ve seen more and more reference to Ning which is just making it easier for these overnight copy cats to open up and dilute our efforts. We are spending  a lot of effort, time, and money in building a quality site. We would appreciate if Ning would listen to  what some of us NCs are saying you don’t need to plug Ning every chance you get. If someone is serious enough about starting a network trust me they’re going to be able to figure it out even if it was a 100% white label.

Ning is it about the quantity or quality of the networks?

[Eric Suesz]

Hi, Kris! We've done our best to respond to your concerns in other topics. I am not sure starting another one is going to be productive. As I have said before, we offer the ability to "Hide Create Links" and we haven't added any references to Ning when we've rolled out new features. That said, if you are seeing a Create link somewhere on your Ning Network, I'll take a look and make sure there's not a bug of some sort.

[Clark P]

Hi Eric,
Maybe we just need to vent! Ning tends to close the discussion on all posts about this. Why not just let it go? Ning is big enough to either ignore it or fix the problem if the criticism gets too vocal.

There are many of us feel as if we have been bait-and-switched. We'll get over it... probably. But don't tell us that it didn't happen. Because it really did. And every time we see a new instance of "Ning" appearing on our sites, we have the same fears and distrust all over again.

I agree completely with what Kris has written. My network was founded in Nov. '08 and there has been a very definite change since then. Everyone at Ning keeps saying there hasn't been a change. But we're not complete idiots. Words are parsed so that if it's not a "link" then any reference to Ning on our un-branded sites is somehow kosher. It's not. That is still promotion. We know it's not a complete white-label solution. But let's keep the promises made and confine the Ning branding to the Log-in and the TOS/Privacy areas.

We'd probably quit bringing this up if that was done that way. ;-)

As it is now, you guys keep taking more ground. So we are forced to fight for what was already ours. We just want a line drawn that isn't constantly being redrawn in your favor. And with the promises made by Ning already, we think you should stick to those promises.

Cheers!
Clark

[Amit S]

Kris, I have got a question to ask you :

If today (knowing, what NING has to offer ) you have to start a network from the scratch which platform would you choose and why ?

Let me tell you my answer : NING ! ( I am also not completely satisfied with NING , but i have learnt to live with NING promotional references if not links, as I pay to remove them)

As for the Quality vs Quantity debate. Both are important (for NING), though the quantity is more important for NING (80%) and a few Prized network (quality ones) will constitute the remaining 20%

PS: Many reputed blogger use wordpress to post their blogs, does that undermine their brand ? Nope because in the long run the platform ceases to matter, the content/designing/marketing is all that matters and help a brand to stand tall among others...

There is no doubt that NING can improve, however what they are offering is one of the better deals available in the market !

[Kris]

If I had to do it all over today. I cant say 100% for sure what platform I would use because I'm targeting a niche local market in a 50 mile radius with a best case scenario of around 5k registered users.

So you can see why we would want to prevent as much as possible any copy cats setting up over nigh diluting our efforts.

Yes ultimately its going to come down to content/designing/marketing, but unlike a blog where the content (text) for the most part is copyrighted that's not the same with a social network.

If your paying to remove the links then your actions speak louder than your words with regards to what you feel the importance of the platform is other wise you wouldn't pay to remove them too.

[Monique]

Well said....The only thing I can add here is that if a person really interested in starting or find out what engine driving my network all that person can to do is right click and look at the source code of the site and they see Ning all over it.

So when Ning have these advertisements on error page they are not attracting people who are serious about creating and investing in a network... The only reason we haven’t shut down our site or move is because I think Ning will get better and nothing happen over night...

People who interested and serious about starting a Social Network will spend the time researching and they WILL find Ning.

Even when we doing our Google advertisement we make sure our advertisement don’t display on other Ning network, we are not interested in those members, If they find us by other means then very well but we not going to advertise to other Ning member or network.

If you notice, we don’t even post our network address on this network and reason is because it’s searchable by Google and it will end up on Google first page for our website address.

When people find our site Ning should not comes to mind or a visitor should not quick to say "this is just an anther Ning site.

Ning should help Network creator to get big, a million or two members then reserved the rights to lease an ads spot on our network...This sound like a better business model than having a few 100,000 dead network or inactive networks.

An ad spot on a network that have a million member should worth more than 100,000 dead or inactive network... We can even have an agreement to send out one advertisement email per month to all members for a fee.

[Jason Powell]

I understand both sides of the argument. What Kris is arguing, Ning references can be found still on login and registration pages, or with the new twitter or FB integration, they have even used the ning reference in the short urls.

Compare: http://ning.it/9VHVCw to what is in their status feed: http://bit.ly/bsaiev.

Now I used to have a bigger issue with this, but I think it is evident that people can find out the sites are Ning sites.

However, if we are paying to have a service, then it should be delivered...just like you wouldn't pay a price on a burger to receive 3/4 of the burger.

I've been with Ning sometime and my bigger issue is the lack of freedom on our sites anymore, which restricts us to Ning Apps, which aren't very good, but that's another issue.

Anyways, I don't think this is going to change much as Eric states he will check to see if this is a bug, which we all know isn't.

But as a developer, there are other solutions such as Drupal, Joomla, or Wordpress, but good luck setting most of those up as an active community in a matter of minutes!

[Eric Suesz]

Yes! I am happy to look into specific bug reports about language appearing in new places, although I haven't received any here or via private requests.

[Robert]

I just wish they would give the NC's an option to remove/turn off the URL shortener ... It is only advertising NING on twitter .. it is a slap in the face after announcing we could add our network name on the twitter posts.

I love Ning and just wish they would just offer a white label solution ...

The NC's aka Customers have been asking for this for the last 2 years.

[Clark P]

Eric from Ning wrote to me and asked:
"Where are you seeing new instances of Ning branding being shown? Can you point me to one? I am happy to take a look."

Hi Eric,
I'll give you a few examples in a moment but first, thank you for your attention to this. I genuinely appreciate it.

The premium service originally sold to me was called "Remove Ning Promotion Links". Now it seems Ning is parsing words and intent and hiding behind the 'letter of the law' to do things they said they would not. Ning is saying that if something is not a link, even if it is promoting Ning, it is fine to place on our un-branded sites. They are also saying that it is alright to prominently promote Ning on pages that the members may click on for some other reason (help, privacy policy, TOS, etc.). I find both of these stances completely contrary to what we were promised. Ning is also publicly using a Ning domain on sites where we pay to use our own domain. These all promote Ning on sites where we are paying you NOT to promote or publicize Ning.

Here are the specific examples of this:
ning.it is the only available URL shortener in the twitter functionality. I would be happy to have that as an option, just not the only one available. I probably wouldn't have a problem with that one either except that ning.it forward to ning.com where the very first words at the top of the page are "Ning - Create a Ning Network". It is totally a promotion page. If ning.it were not a promotional link, it would go to a page that explained ULR shorteners. See http://bit.ly/ as an example. As it stands, ning.it is a promotional domain that is publicized on our sites and on Twitter when people take action on our un-branded sites.

Clicking on the "Help" link at the bottom of any pages on our networks takes members to help.ning.com. So the Help link is not a promotional link... But the page it leads to, although it does contain a help component, is blatant promotion of Ning. help.ning.com promotes starting your own Ning network. Very prominently at the top on that page it has a link that says "Getting Started on Ning" which tells to how to start your own network. Help.ning.com should be used to assist people who need help on Ning networks. It should NOT be used to try and promote them starting their own network. This is contrary to what we are paying for.

Another recent example of Ning promotion (that has since been rectified) was the "Join this Ning Network" link on our sites. I know you have changed this now, but I certainly don't believe it was a glitch. I'm pretty certain that someone saw it as a way to backhandedly promote Ning (while linking to our own networks Join page - what could be wrong with that???) so they intentionally put in that Ning language. It was changed after people like Kris made an issue about it. It's another example of us having to claw back what was already ours. I'm thankful it was changed but the fact that it was put in at all has still lead spammers searching for Ning networks to all our un-branded sites when they couldn't find them before. Google still has that in it's cache and brings it up as search results at this very moment. Aargh.

To uphold the promises made to premium service NC's, I believe we should: a) Not see the word Ning on our sites other than in the TOS, Log-in, and possibly Help sections, b) Not see any Ning domains published on our sites or because of our sites - no Ning or Ning domain promotion when someone twitters from our site, and c) Not have any 'two-step' promotion where our member clicks on a link for one reason (ie. Help) and is taken to a page that blatantly promotes Ning and starting your own network.

So to fix the examples given, premium NC's should be able to use a different URL shortener when their members tweat from our sites (at the very least, the ning.it domain should NOT forward to ning.com which is only promotional -- it should be it's own page about URL shortening). And all promotional links should be removed from help.ning.com. If that took place, I would feel Ning was living up to it's promises. Until then, it is hiding behind the letter of the law and doesn't have premium NC's interests as it's focus. We pay... but we're less important to Ning than promoting Ning itself.

Ning is not living up to it's promises to premium service NC's while these "features" remain.

Don't worry, we'll let NIng know when they add new examples of promoting Ning on our unbranded sites. ;-) (And, based on past behavior, Ning WILL try to add new instances of this ).

Thanks again Eric,
Clark

[Jason Powell]

I agree with almost everything Clark is arguing, except the ning in domains which they cannot control, since ultimately all of our sites reside on a ning.com server. If you have paid to mask this, that is all it is doing is masking, but establishing a re-direct from whomever you purchased your domain from. Unfortunately that is the way domains redirects and URLS work.

Cudos to the other valid points though!

[Clark P]

Hi Jason,
I'm mostly talking about the ning.it domain that is posted in every tweat that contains a link from our sites. That domain is not one that has anything to do with the functionality of our sites. It is only used as a domain shortener... and to promote Ning if you go to the domain itself (which is forwarded to ning.com).

[Laura]

Hi Clark,

We had to choose one domain for the shortener. You are welcome to create your own shortener for your domain and use it for sharing content instead. It won't be baked into the Share feature provided, but maintains the consistency you're looking for.

Laura