Ning Phasing out Free Sites - What Are Your Thoughts?

Today, Ning announced a monumental change in it's business plan. This is good news and bad news. For premium networks, it's probably good news; in that, it's what most premium networks thought they were investing in, in the first place. It will make the premium Ning Networks closer to white label, and likely more valuable assets. It is bad news and extremely sad for some free Ning Networks. Here's an excerpt from the announcement by Ning's CEO - Jason Rosenthal:


When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what's working, what's not, and what we need to do now
to make Ning a big success.


My main conclusion is that we need to double down on our premium services
business. Our Premium Ning Networks like Friends or Enemies, Linkin
Park, Shred or Die, Pickens Plan, and tens of thousands of others both
drive 75% of our monthly US traffic, and those Network Creators need and
will pay for many more services and features from us.


So, we are going to change our strategy to
devote 100% of our resources to building the winning product to capture
this big opportunity. We will phase out our free service. Existing
free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for
premium services, or transition off of Ning. We will judge ourselves by
our ability to enable and power Premium Ning Networks at huge scale.
And all of our product development capability will be devoted to making
paying Network Creators extremely happy.

Full Story


New Group: Alternative Solutions to Ning


Please offer and discuss possible solutions, for owners of free Ning Networks. And most of all, let's all offer encouragement to our fellow Ning Network Creators.


UPDATE FROM NING CEO: JASON ROSENTHAL:

ORIGINAL STORY HERE - - Ning Update: Rolling Out Full Details May 4th

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 off 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.


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Comment by The Pagan Umbrella on April 16, 2010 at 7:36am
Someone suggested socialparody.com as a possible alternitive for those of us that are free here on ning.
I checked out the place and yes it would be a good place, but it is for adults only and they have porno advertisements on the site that you build. While this may be enjoyable for some, I know that it is not the right thing for most of the free sites that are on here.
JEN, I have one question, does paying to use one's own domain name constitute a premium service, and if it does, will that rate be increased with the changes that are being made?
Tho I would hate to have to leave ning, if I have to I will, and the next community that I create will surpass the one here. I would much rather make this one rock and stand out, but as of now, we are being left in the dark.
The messege that went out says that there will be more info in 2 wks. This was not well thought out. It should be available to us now. You don't just make a decision, send it out and then work out the details.
POINT BLANK SIMPLE: HOW LONG DO WE FREE COMMUNITIES HAVE TILL WE ARE PHASED OUT AND WHY IS NO ONE EXPLAINING ANY OTHER OPTIONS WITH US!!!
We want answers and not have to wait for them.
Comment by Transcription n Rewriting on April 16, 2010 at 7:36am
Thanks American Freedom - Webstarts does look promising; I am also looking at groupsite, socialgo for my groups, but for a solo standing website terapad also looks good.
Comment by magic realm on April 16, 2010 at 7:31am
i agree with forest and path, ning will only lose a lot of members,
and i wasted my time building my site
Comment by World Of Rock 2 - Douglas on April 16, 2010 at 5:02am
What a shock. This is the message I have to send out to all of my sites. { It's sad but true that ning is closing the door sites. At least that's what I am reading about at http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/15/nings-bubble-bursts-no-more-free-n... . I am looking for a new home for Country Road's too. I am looking at http://www.webstarts.com/cadmin-v2.7/dashboard/index.php ; but, I am trying the figured it out. I have other networks on ning as well that I need to find a new home for. It is a crying shame that ning offered a free site and then turn around and charge for it after so many people had put so much work it to it. I will try my best to find a new site and I will try to keep in touch with all about any changes.}

Wishing blessings,
Doug
Comment by LOVE and LIGHT world on April 16, 2010 at 4:32am
DEAR ALL SOULS
I AM TOTALLY IN SHOCKING - FOR ME THIS IS CRAZY AND LIFE SAD SITUATION
I AM CREATOR MY NETWORK LOVE AND LIGHT WORLD - SPREADING TWO YEARS LOVE, LIGHT AND SPIRITUAL INFO.... TO ALL.. THATS ABSOLUTELY PARADOX AND MY ENGLISH IS BAD...PLS I DONT KNOW WHAT CAN I DO.... IF I HAVE TO PAY... HOW MANY... PLS PLS HELP ME PLS...WHAT CAN I DO... RAMSIELFROM CZECH REPUBLIC, EUROPE
Comment by Arianas Attic on April 16, 2010 at 3:48am
Just another thing.... they were quick to promote themselves as an alternative to msn in the wake of it closing.... lure people in with a free service that had premium extras.. then a little while down the line see the potential for making many many pounds. people always get greedy in the end!!
Comment by Arianas Attic on April 16, 2010 at 3:45am
Personally, I think the people behind Ning are shooting themselves in the foot..... maybe have a small monthly charge for people selling items on their ning site, but to charge everyone, even those that are just using theirs for social networking,..... I see tears with this one, and all the people the ning guys think will race to go premium, will simply go elsewhere.

There are so many free forums you can use on the net with free web hosting, ning could compete when it was free, ning cant compete when there are free options that work well!!!... but this is the way a lot of people go in the end, they just want to screw people over because they are powered by greed.
Comment by LiveLaughFreedom on April 16, 2010 at 3:44am
It's very sad to hear this news, specially for the people who finds on the social & spiritual sites friendships, hope, faith and love. I can't afford it to continue my Ningsite Livelaughfreedom.ning.com in the Netherlands and I'd like to ask if someone can tell me how to shut/quit this site after I have to inform my members and friends.
Love & Light* with Gods bless to all
Nelly xxx
Comment by Jul Krabetz on April 16, 2010 at 3:36am
Its a bad thing, cause it looks like now Ning gots the idea using its members for making money.. based on an social idea! I think there should be space taking a personal choose what to do. Maybe just changing the premium services like * more storage* and instead 5000 Photos then 2000 photos.. then it would make sense for me to pay.. otherwise its not the best way for a start up.. also I ll thinking then to change from ning to my own network site.. I think the same with 9M networks surely a lot of them are using premium and gots very big.. ..brought ning a lot of money.. also if they really change then they should offer more than just services...
Comment by united painters on April 16, 2010 at 3:35am
very sad to hear this news,as others mentioned I have seen this progress before on other sites too and it ends up in a gigantic circus most of the time where money roules
I will close my network down too with pain in my heart

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