Current status of the Ning Platform is always available on the Ning Status Blog.

Overview of Q3 and Ning Q4 2017 plan.

Better late than never - here is the product plan Q3 overview and Plans for Q4.
As you might have noticed, all the promised features have been released. We did our best to keep the deadlines and fit your expectations.
So here are Q3 updates:

1. Paid Access is finally live. It is even more than just old Paid Access, it is a great e-commerce platform with Stripe and PayPal integration. For now it is only available for beta-group, so if you forgot to ask for beta access, don’t miss your chance till Nov 3d.
2. Audio feature is live. Now you can easily create playlists, audio lessons, add audio tracks, podcasts, and any mp3 files. The feature has got a completely new design, which we think looks awesome.
3. Polls. Completely new feature for Ning, only available for Ning 3.0. Using Polls all Ning NCs can easily get up to date feedback from Network members.
4. The Design Studio got a few new templates, a bunch of new fonts and backgrounds to make it more user-friendly and provide flexibility of options you have in order to make your network modern and unique even without coding skills.
5. SSL certification had been implemented for all ning domain names.

Keeping in mind that we are living in the era of mobile devices all new features have been developed in a way so they would look great on mobile devices.

You could not miss how the Creators network changed, which is completely Kyryl’s merit, as is the new guide for Facebook integration.

And now as for the next steps, we are going to make:

1. Member ranking system
2. E-commerce platform wider development (donations, network membership, groups)
3. MailChimp Integration
4. SSL for custom domains, completely automated process.
5. Push notifications

Besides, there are lots of other improvements on the way, more related to back end, like the rework of the activity feed architecture and migration script (these are just the biggest ones so we simply can't help but highlight them).

As always we are happy to receive feedback from you, so feel free to drop us a line.

Sincerely yours,
Ning Team.

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      • Hi Suzie,

        The e-commerce updates are related to the 3.0 platform, as there is already working paid access feature on 2.0.

        Best regards,

        Ning Team.

  • I would like to say, I think you guys did a very good job as a comeback for the year. It had some bumps, but in the bigger scope and from where we were years ago a significant change should have been received from us Creators. The key elements of growth has been:

    • the updated communication and forum monitoring on Creators
    • the improved response time from customer service
    • the feature updates.

    I would like to mention not to forego quality for quantity with some of the updates. So dont be afraid to designate a relook at all that was done this year for any possible tweaks that could be made.

    But again the main purpose of me writing was to say thank you for the work so far and lets finish strong in this last quarter. 

    • Hi there!

      We are glad that you have noticed improvements and we will try our best to keep up on the same level or higher.

      And thanks, for your comment such feedbacks are helping us (and for me in particular) to get up each morning :-)

      Best regards,

      Ning Team.

  • This reply was deleted.
    • The reactions system/like per each forum comment would be helpful

    • Hi Tim,

      Unfortunately, some of the suggestions are really huge for example  "Add SMTP support" would require the complete rework of the mailing system at the same time for this purpose there will be integration with MailChimp available, so I'm sure that it won't be possible to accomplish all of that in 2018.

      1. This suggestion sounds good, but it only sounds so, just imagine you have the network, you have worked hard on its design and then some of your members who are not good in design would come and create some designs for their pages, that wouldn't be really attractive etc. and the whole impression regarding your network would be spoiled by such profiles, and if you have for example several thousands of members it would be really hard to control this.

      2. This suggestion sounds nice as well, I'll create the suggestion to add such functionality

      3. Such functionality would require a lot of dev time and unfortunately, I don't think that it would be widely used by the members. However, as the architecture of the activity feed is going to be changed it would become more flexible to the changes, and there is an idea to make customisable activity feed, but right now it's only on the stage of the idea so I cannot tell that it would happen with the 100% assuredness.

      4. As far as I have understood, you wish that your members would have the ability to set different privacy settings for the items they have added (comments doesn't count I guess) only for the search engine, well if the advanced search would be created I think developers have to at least to take a look into this as it sounds good. However, there is some sort of workaround, if you use custom google search it's possible to include the content your members don't wish to appear in the results into the robot.txt, and they won't be indexed by it. In order to accept requests to block some content you can, for example, rework "report an issue" form by changing one category to block in search or smth like this.

      5. The Gifts, based on the popularity of this feature on 2.0 platform I can tell there is really low chances that they would be ever implemented on 3.0 as there are a lot of other functionalities as "Add a smilies system" that would be used for sure.

      6. Ning APP, it requires API to be available, which is unfortunately not true for 3.0 at the moment, there were some works with it this year but at the moment it's on pause until the next year.

      7. You can make themes right now, also you are able to export and import them with the design studio

      8. I don't quite understand what is the reactions system, could you please specify a bit.

      9. The subdomain could be changed, just send us an email and we will change it to any you wish if it's available

      10. That is possible with categories, and the range of the settings would be even augmented with the release of the Members Ranking system, as basically, it allows to assign different permissions to separate members.

      11. MailChimp will replace it :-)

      12. The member can sign up to any module and any post if he/she wishes to.

      13. Post already could be tagged, I'll add the suggestion to make the groups taggable, however so far I don't realize the purpose except that such groups would be visible in the search results by the tag, and that it would be possible to categorize groups in that way.

      14. We already have such suggestion in the system, however, management hasn't made the final decision regarding it yet

      15. Limitation of the content upload etc has been requested already one day, I have added your vote to that suggestion.

      16. Well, you can share files in several ways, upload them to the file manager, upload them into blogs, or let your members upload the files into the comments.

      17. The whole purpose of the wiki is to have some articles with the information, basically, you can use articles feature for that purpose, and if it's necessary to create several instances categories etc it also could be done.

      18. If you are talking about link directory like the list of the links, well you can create it in HTML module, blog, forum, uploaded file to the file manager, if you are talking about something that would be created for the search purposes of ver your network, I think any search would be better

      19. You just need the separate page for the Q&A and HTML module to post the text in, after you can move it to unlinked pages and use the link to it everywhere you wish unless you have meant something else under Q&A.

      20. Members ranking system would serve this purpose

      21. If I get right something that you right, basically it could be done with the certain skills, the main point of the petition is to collected signs, well with the script you can rework the functionality of the network's like button call it sign up and place wherever you wish, also you can run the script which is doing so on the specific instance so the other likes won't be affected, but I don't think that such functionality would be widely used, as it seems to be really specific.

      22. The members are able to create tags, which basically could be used as categories as by clicking on them you would receive the list with content with the same tag unless you have wanted to use them for something different that categories can do.

      23. Your vote has been added to that suggestion, as I know our management has already thought how to include

      24. Just to specify, the match between the profiles like on the dating sites?

      25. I'll add your vote to the suggestion we have, I'm just not sure html5 would be used

      26. The paid access is in beta right now, based on it it's functionality (when it would be ready) it's possible to attach paywalls to the separate items, and you can use them as the items in online store, however, the social networking never was about stores or something like that, so I don't think separate module for online stores would be ever added

      27. One of our beta testers has already requested to add similar functionality in paid access, however even at the moment you can do something like this, just let the members to use member's customizable html boxes, and there they should be able to place the links to the payment gateways for their product, iframes etc.

      28. The albums are good for photos and maybe videos, by I guess it would be too much to have categories tags and albums for forums for example especially when you can create several forum instances. However, I have added your vote to the suggestion regarding albums for photos and videos

      29. You can call any our number from Skype, they all are toll-free so it wouldn't cost you anything.

      30. Added your vote to this suggestion as well, but as I see the management has included this feature in the plan for the next year

      31. I have created the suggestion to implement such functionality when the management would make any decision regarding this I'll let you know.

      32. The suggestion to implement such functionality has been added to the task tracking system

      33. That would require a complete rework of the platform I don't think it would be done next year.

      34. I have created the suggestion regarding dislike button, as we haven;t had one yet

      35. Well you can see the feature content on the network itself you can pull them just like the categories, so I don't think this one will be done

      36. Of course this is a good idea, however, if there is too much of the content which does not correspond to the needs of the NC it will cause some inconveniences removing all that content

      37. I don't think it's a good idea, as basically that content belongs to the member who has left your network it's simply not right from the ethical point of view, please let me know don't think so.

      38. Do you wish to set specific time frame after which the member would be restored on the network after suspension?

      39. If the platform would become more popular we will do that for sure :-) (if you are talking about our support team of course)

      40. We work 24/7

      41. I have been confused by this, could you please specify what have you meant?

      42. Suggestion added I'll make the post here once hear anything regarding sitemap

      43. Some examples would be appreciated, as for example, RSS feed isn't suitable for group hub page

      44. There different kinds of integrations that could be done, which one would like to see? As an example, we have the suggestion to place the blogs from the WordPress on Ning and in opposite way as well so I just want to know whether I should add your vote to this suggestion or you have some other ideas?

      45. I guess member ranking system would cover this if you specify what kind of promotions have you written about I'll be able to tell for sure.

      46. Correct if I'm wrong but here is the code of the creator's forum page (creators is the network on Ning 3.0, it's just for those who are not aware of this) with tags you have described:

      zb7yK6IjsGWJw0FoS0U6wrf0v-CXhIfvdLRuqBpAi0oQ_eDCkP5ZV9LBh9fW3rgBI8pLKmZNZIpzPv8rdM1ZTb3sJt-o-rJSC-o9CxHgTvU0E4PSGC1io6Vda8Hl4ySVXJnI65j3

      The name of the page of the site is fully under your control, All discussions, as well as this text, could be changed in language editor.

      47. Please see the first sentence of this comment, or the second one, I don't remember already :-)

      48. We will do, one day, if there would be some time for this, however, we have the network https://mountainbiking.ning.com/blog/getting-started-guide with guide how to use certain functionality, also there is the process of that network creation filmed a well, we are sending the link to if the people are interested to see some examples

      49. Don't you think it would be too much and the website would look a bit messy? As you may know people now days are trying to create something in lightweight, if all the options would be on presented on the frontend, well, that would definitely make the website look pretty complicated, just like the software for trading I have seen once in my life

      50. I guess that is possible, only 2 -3 additional buttons and only for admins won't spoil the site's look, other words the suggestion has been posted

      51. Could you please specify how it should look like? For example, I have seen here on creators, John has posted how he has run the photo contest by using the network's like button and renaming it with the following replacement of it to the other place so it would look like the contest.

      52. I have added the suggestion to add such functionality, and I guess you wish it to be integrated with the match system, am I right?

      53. It seems to be the same as the archiver you have suggested to add earlier

      54. If we are talking regarding the migration to other services, the file generated by the archiver could be used for this purpose. If you are talking regarding migration from 2.0 to  3.0 we would continue to work on it in this quarter

      55. You can add HTML box and embed any widget on that page as to any other page of the network unless you have meant something else.

      56. On "Site and pages" tab you can control the settings of each module you have placed there 

      Phew, I have finished :-)

      Best wishes,

      Ning Team.




      Getting Started Guide
      Social Site Manager Dashboard Your Ning Network’s Dashboard provides at-a-glance statistics about your Ning Network. It highlights recent announcem…
      • The thing about 1 is that depending on who's managing the community you can always set up something like this. https://gyazo.com/7a3d3a66be5717fb98021880fc63e650 (This is a screenshot of the Wayback Machine btw). This was a community where people shared themes with each other on our platform lead by our designer. And we had many great looking profiles. We also taught our user base CSS, which was great to help educate the masses. But i can see why you wouldn't want to do this from a developing perceptive and not just design. Loading speed, not really the best for mobile displays, etc. 

        But down the line this is still a good option, but it still screams 2008. Maybe one day it'll make it's rightful comeback. 

        Gyazo
        • Hi there!

          For the community, you have described this feature is must have, anyway the suggestion has been posted to teh task tracking system, right now the management should decide whether it should be implemented or not.

          Best regards,

          Ning team.

      • NC for Hire

        nice work!

    • NC for Hire

      dude... some of this is crazy and some you can already do and Ning is not going to do for you... here is what you can already do:

      1, 3, 4 isnt going to happen, 5 and 6 are old features no one uses, 7 you can do, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 27,29, 30 you can do, 39,43,56

    • Dang!!!!! Are you sure you dont need a sec for more thought on the matter. LOL

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