What's Your Experience in Building Mobile Apps for Ning Platform?

[Jen]

Hi Fellow NCs!

Happy Veterans Day!

I'm creating this discussion to ask for your expertise/experiences in creating mobile apps for a Ning Community. My Design Firm is about to embark on building our first Mobile App for a Ning Community. I want to make sure we build the app using the best mobile app development tool or service, and that we use a tool/service that's the most cost efficient for development and ongoing-costs .

 

We're looking at Shoutem's new application builder and Mobile Roadie. We would love to hear about your experiences, what you used to build your mobile app, what your mobile app offers, and your successes.

 

Thank you in advance for sharing your experiences. I would be extremely grateful for any guidance on this.

• Mobile App Platform Tool or Service
• Mobile App Features
• ~ What does yours do?
• ~ Is it geared towards your Members only, or all Mobile App Users?
• Approximate Cost per month?
• ~ Do we pay Ning for the use of API in addition to the Mobile App service? I honestly don't know.
• ~ Or in the case of Mobile Roadie, does the "technology partnership" with Ning include all API costs? Again, I don't know yet. I'm guessing we have to pay both, and why I would love to hear cost feedback.
• How large is your User Base?

We would welcome any information you would like to share.

Thanks again, and really looking forward to some awesome feedback.

Best Regards,

Jen

[Eric]

i noticed that when you click on a item in the activity feed it doesn't give much detail and there is an indicator on the app that the post came from ning -->ning on the top bar.  i wonder if this will be on the final app on itunes.

[Alliance]

I believe the answer is no and that is because of NING. they will not let the mobile apps interact with your site. Mobile apps now are a one way street.

[Jen]

Pilorie,

Thanks for your input. I wouldn't be focused on one browser and one device, but all. If you test ShoutEm or any other mobile app that syncs with Ning, would love to hear your experiences.

Best Regards,

Jen

[Jen]

I have great news about ShoutEm and their pricing for the Ning API feature. I'll post the email I received back from Viktor below. Bottom line: ShoutEm is going to offer the Ning Plugin as part of their base system - - $29.90/$35.90, instead of the $49.90/$59.90. I suppose the rate could vary a little, but it should be close.

Email from Viktor, CEO of ShoutEm:

Hi all. ShoutEm did integration with Ning few months ago in order to enable Ning Creators to build native mobile apps for their communities.

We have used everything that was available in Ning API and that as well aligns with our platform on the other side.

It includes:

- Sign In with Ning ID. (Sign up not supported)

- Activity feed sync (Users can post statuses and photos)

- Blogs (Users can read and comment)

- User profiles (Users can see other user profiles)

- Everything is automatically synced as soon as you provide API key to ShoutEm

- Blogs are automatically imported and synced

- Activity feed is synced with our Social Networking module (there is a slight delay in API :( )

We will move Ning plugin into the Basic as you required. We have done so with Wordpress and Drupal, so it makes sense to do the same with Ning. Check our pricing in a day or two, hope you'll like that :).

I would encourage you to sign up at www.shoutem.com because in next couple of weeks/months there will be many news. One of them is our iPad app that is already in beta testing.

And please, do not hesitate to let us know if you have any problems at [e-mail]

Enjoy,

Viktor, ShoutEm CEO.

[Franco Mercalli]

Thanks for the news, Jen!

This is consistent wit my previous post: when you provide them your API key, they access the Ning API and offer what is available there.

Unfortunately, that means — among other — no Forum and no Groups, which are important features for our Network. Pity...

[Jen]

Exactly, thanks for sharing the information. I was the one who was lost. ;-)

[Rowald]

Events and Videos are also not supported?

[Rowald]

Found it;) No support for videos and events

[EAM]

Events also critically useful.... but not supported....

 

[Eric]

you can show events by using the RSS feed of the "Upcoming events" page (http://your-url.com/events/event/listUpcoming):

feed://your-url.com/events/event/feed?xn_auth=no

 

[Dawn]

Very helpul! I was wondering how much of a learning curve I'd have to go on. Great discussion. Thx, Jen and others!

[Jen]

Hi Dawn,

Glad the discussion is helpful!

Best,

Jen