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Update From Ning's Vice President of Advocacy

I just read this casual update on the Ning Creator site. John McDonald (Vice President, Advocacy) was responding to Ning Network comments, to the first update discussion announced by Jason Rosenthal:
http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/ning-update-rolling-out-full
Reply by John McDonald 1 hour ago (April 19, 2010): Hi,
Many of you have posted questions about when we will phase out our free
service and how much time we will give you to make a decision. I want to
assure you that we will give you adequate time to evaluate the changes
and transition to the new paid service. As Jason explained at the start
of this discussion, we will share all of the details of our new offering
on May 4, including features and price points. We plan to roll-out this
new offering in early summer. Once the changes roll-out, we will give
you ample time to make a decision to move to the new paid service.

In other words, you will have a minimum of 10 weeks to transition.

Thanks,
John

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Comment by Geneghis on April 23, 2010 at 1:00am: Hi
I find an other website, better of spruz: http://www.webs.com/
But I choose wordpress.com. It's a blog with 3GB by blog and you can have different blog for different things. If you speack about defferent thems, like my ning's site for exemple, you can open blogs for them. It needs time to understand it, but it gives a lot of possibility and it's a pleasure to work with it. You can have a lot of possibility and it recognize differents codes. I think to continue with it because it's really great ;-) And you can choice your languages too.

Comment by Cherokee Rose - Lester on April 22, 2010 at 1:15pm: Geneghis.
SocialGo provide FREE with no adds. Spruz and Wackwall are rushing to update the systems and from what I can see, they could be the next generation Ning - and FREE. I know of Ning sites that have already moved to Spruz, and they are delighted with their new home.
On the Spruz home page, there is a banner saying 'Spruz welcomes Ning Social Network Creators'.
The thing is, our creativity is of value and the Spruz banner is recognising that.

Comment by Cherokee Rose - Lester on April 22, 2010 at 1:04pm: Hold fast everyone, we missed the obvious.

Ning has about 2.3 million sites on the Ning platform and they are all FREE sites because nobody is paying Ning to have a site on the Ning platform.
What people are paying for is not to be on the platform but for additional items as optional.
You do not pay anything if you have the word 'ning' in your url but you do pay something if you use your own domain url instead of Nin'g domain for your url.
You don't to have adds on your site but you do pay if you want to go add free. You only pay for extras if you want them, but you don't pay if you don't want them.
All your sites are on Ning for free. You are not charged for having a site on Ning.
So if after a certain time you decide to have the ning domain and the adds back, you would no longer be charged. They can only charge you for NOT using the ning domain in the url. They can only charge you for NOT displaying the adds.
The ceo is not going to charge us for being on Ning, he is going to charge us for being add free on Ning because he wants Ning to be add free. The thing that is wrong with that is the freedom to choose is being taken away from us which could be classed as an infringement of our human rights.

Comment by the Heiress Cafe on April 22, 2010 at 9:28am: The powers that be at Ning are full of baloney. IMO, they knew all along that Ning was going to be a pay~only site. They've operated the same as any thug drug dealer. Give away enough to make you feel you need it, then make you pay. Bottom line, for many, if it's not free, it's not do~able. If they were truly about being fairness they could offer free & paid versions, like many other sites (image hosting, and web hosting being the first, but not the only to spring to mind) . Or, now here's a rrreally novel approach ~ HONESTY. Say from the jump, we're not free forever, and let people go in with their eyes open, a more critical eye, and asking themselves, "would I be willing to pay for this, and if so how much". But there's the rub, they wanted us desperate, not thoughtful. So, all the arm breaking that's going on from execs like John McDonald patting themselves on the back is truly quite laughable. Clearly they all attended the Three~Card~Monty School of Business. Ultimately they'll prevail, because they're drug~dealer approach was implemented quite smoothly, and there are people who will stay either because they've been on too long and built too much to realistically move (even in their oh~so~magnanimous 10 weeks), or b/c in life, you pick your battles, and for some, this just ain't one of 'em. Thankfully for me, my Ning is still new, and I hadn't really gotten a chance to put my all into it. My suggestion, if you don't HAVE to stay, don't. The mask is off. It's one thing to deal with a company not knowing they're sneaky. But once you know, you owe it to yourself to move on.

Comment by Geneghis on April 22, 2010 at 9:05am: @rasing. I have already begin to change the website. spruz.com is in english and I see ti have an other politics. I have already write to all members of my website and i'm tired of ning, I don't want to life the same things.
Same Ning is 0.5$ py year, I don't want pay for a site what is not for money. Sorry

Comment by Vinyl & Beat Diggers on April 21, 2010 at 11:44pm: I'm just saying that for 2 years now I've been promoting ning. ning has been in my dot com and all my promotions. How many paying customers do they have from the ning sites I created and made people aware of?? It just doesn't seem fair is all. Please enjoy my ning site while it lasts, lol http://vinyl4sale.ning.com - VINYL & BEAT DIGGERS

Comment by Peter J. Bury on April 20, 2010 at 10:16am: It was high time that you clarified that John, but I maintain my points in my previous contributions, P

Comment by Geneghis on April 20, 2010 at 12:58am: I understand the position of the directory. But I'm not ok with it too.
In first time, Ning put customs betwin the network and we must find other member ba twitter and facebook. It's hard but now, we have habits.
We haven't a lot of members and our website is not for make money, but to make exchange on ideas on things what's happen in the world. It's not an educative's site too, but like a club who peaple speack about all.
We don't make concurence on some commercial's sites.
We make a hard working to write comments with links and videos, etc...
I don't want to pay because I make a lot of work for my website and it's me to be payed for this.
I'm just upset of this decision but we must make with it and I haven't powerful for times.
I don't find french social network. It's kill me and I'm lost for this moment.

Comment by Living On Love on April 19, 2010 at 7:47pm: http://education.change.org/petitions/view/keep_ning_free_for_nonpr...

Comment by Houston Volleyball on April 19, 2010 at 5:01pm: Consolidate Billing and add more themes and features expand admin control of site and features.
I don't mind at all it will be worth it to me to keep my site going membership on the rise daily!