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Ning's Big Announcement May 4, 2010 - Details and What Are Your Thoughts?

Ning Update: Introducing Ning Pro, Ning Plus and Ning Mini

Please share your thoughts on today's big announcement.

Visit us in the Chat room, upper right next to Breaking News.

Article was originally posted by Eric Suesz on May 4, 2010 at 8:03am on Ning Creators Site

Our CEO, Jason Rosenthal, just posted a blog post about our upcoming plans and pricing. I thought I would reprint it here
for Creators.

I’m excited to introduce three new versions of the Ning Service that we will roll out in July. When we announced two weeks ago that we were going to refocus on paying Ning Networks and phase out our free service, we knew there would be many questions about what the new Ning would look like. Our goal with these offerings — as explained below — is to enhance the experience Network Creators have on Ning, and by extension, the experiences your members have as well.

What will we be rolling out in July? We’ll start with many of the things Network Creators have been asking for and extend the service from there. The end of Ning promotional links, leading to a more customized, branded experience for you and your members. An ad free experience and the option to run your own ads — if you like. Easy content export and back-up. The end of Ning ID and ability to add Facebook and Twitter sign-in. API access for a more integrated experience. The ability to charge for membership and accept donations. We’ve listened to your more frequent and pressing requests and combined them with our current premium services into three new product offerings — Ning Pro, Ning Plus and Ning Mini.

For full comparison of the three plans, click here.

Our pricing plans offer incredible value relative to our current Premium Services. For example, your Ning Network currently has the option to Use Your Own Domain, Remove Create Links, and Run Your Own Ads. You can take advantage of all of these services for about $55/month right now.
With the Ning Plus, you’ll be able to have them all for $19.95/month. We will also offer current Network Creators a one-time annual pricing discount that provides even greater value.

We also recognize that many small non-profit, family or other small group Ning Networks have limited budgets, and we value what you’ve created on Ning. For $2.95/month or $19.95/year, Ning Mini provides a powerful set of features to continue to grow and engage with your members — ad-free or with your own ads.

We’ve also heard from many Network Creators who use Ning in the classroom as an integral part of their curriculum. I am particularly excited to announce that a major education company will be sponsoring Ning Mini Networks for educators in primary and secondary education. Ning will remain free for K-12 educators and their students. We’ll have details on this program soon!

We will roll out Ning Pro, Ning Plus and Ning mini in July. Current Network Creators will have 30 days following the roll-out to decide which plan best fits their needs. For Ning Creators using our free
service who choose to move to another service, we will offer a simple way to export all of your content.

We know there’s a lot of questions, including how to choose a plan, when you can sign up and what happens if you don’t choose an option. That’s why we’ve created a place with all the details about this new offering, including details, a timeline and FAQs (also available in Spanish, here). I look forward to your feedback, both in the comments below and on Creators."

Announcement

In July, we will roll-out three new pricing plans and begin phasing out our free service. Many of you chose the Ning Platform to build your communities because it’s the easiest to use, has the most
reliable performance and easily scales to hundreds of thousands of members. Our shift to a paid service model will enable us to focus to a greater degree on enhancing the features, performance and services we offer to our paying Network Creators. You’ll immediately see greater control over your network branding, design and member experience. All three plans
offer an incredible value relative to our current premium services offerings.

Ning MiniThe simplest and fastest way to set up a social network for your classroom, community group, small nonprofit or family	Ning PlusThe tools and features you need to build and grow a branded social network with high engagement – an incredible value at a great price	Ning ProThe ideal solution for building a comprehensive social experience, including additional features, integration, support and bandwidth
$2.95/month or $19.95/year* (save 44%)	$19.95/month or $199.95/year* (save 16%)	$49.95/month or $499.95/year* (save 17%)
Up to 150 members	Unlimited members	Unlimited members
	Full control over your branding and member experience	Full control over your branding and member experience
Features include blogs, photos, forum and video embeds	Full feature set including events, groups, chat, pages and Ning Apps	Full feature set plus video and music uploads and branded players
Simple customization options	Advanced customization options including CSS, Javascript and the Language Editor	Advanced customization options, plus the API access upgrade when launched
Includes run your own ads	Includes run your own ads, use your own domain and remove Ning links	Includes run your own ads, use your own domain, remove Ning links and add storage and bandwidth
Community-based support	Help Center support	Premium support

* One-time annual pricing

For full comparison of the three plans, click here.

Features You’ve Been Asking For

For Ning Pro and Ning Plus customers, we are excited to deliver a number of new features that give you greater control:

Replace the Ning ID with your custom network ID
Remove all Ning branding
Up to 25 text boxes and 25 RSS feeds on your home page
Text boxes in the header and footer
Member statistics
Controls to hide invite, share, Facebook or Twitter links, turn off private messaging and strengthen member verification

Even better? Once we launch these new packages, we’ll begin to add the features and options that are most important to you, including API access; sign-in with Facebook, Twitter or your own authentication
system (a.k.a. single sign-in); and a way to charge members for joining
your Ning Network.

Your Content and Data

When we launch the new pricing plans in July, we will add an automated content export option to the manage page of each Ning Network. You will have 30 days after the launch to choose one of the three new
plans or export your content.

Timeline

May 4: Announce new suite of premium offerings
July: Launch new packages and notify all Network Creators via email and announcement banner.
Launch + 30 days: Grace period for existing Ning Networks to purchase one of the pricing plans.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by JenSocial on May 4, 2010 at 3:09pm

Going to add this to my blog. Aren't you the awesome news carrier today? ;-) I appreciate it.

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Permalink Reply by GirlRiders on May 4, 2010 at 11:17am

I am moving to Ning Plus. Hopefully it will be easy to embed videos. Other than that, the new features look good and I had already conceded to paying $25 a month, now I'll be paying only $20.

Sorry for the ignorance - but what is API, offered in Pro?

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Permalink Reply by RBGStreetScholar on May 4, 2010 at 12:06pm

EXCELLENT CAPTURE Retropirate.co.uk, I MAKES NING USELESS (Costs Us Out) 4 WHAT WE DO/WELL BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD.

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Permalink Reply by 12SC Social Community on May 4, 2010 at 2:28pm

Host deal with the headaches then. You are not thinking you are whining and use a permanently poor man's reasoning.

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Permalink Reply by 12SC Social Community on May 4, 2010 at 9:56pm

You and they are welcome to join my network and continue as before. Even if you feel insulted.

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Permalink Reply by Jay Negron on May 4, 2010 at 11:50am

I have a small music site on Ning and it will be wayyyyyyyy too costly to go to NingPro.

No music uploads on NingPlus so we will go to Grou.ps where there are NO uploads either but no charge either.

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Permalink Reply by RBGStreetScholar on May 4, 2010 at 12:00pm

IS THERE A BUNDLE OPTION FOR PERSONS/GROUPS WITH MULTIPLE NETWORKS? IT WOULD MAKE THINGS MUCH EASIER/LESS WORK LOGISTICALLY 4 ME.

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Permalink Reply by Neuerotica on May 4, 2010 at 2:30pm

http://theningdirectory.ning.com/group/groupmergernegotiationsfreep...

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Permalink Reply by Lakrush Hearts on May 4, 2010 at 12:15pm

I think this price system sucks. How ya go from $60 (+$15 domain) a year to $200 (+15 domain) thats a hell ova leap and cut the features. FIRST SCRIPTS4NING THAT DEAL GOES DOWN THE DRAIN & NOW THIS... NO BUENOS NING!!!!

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Permalink Reply by Fantasyland "Admin." on May 4, 2010 at 12:30pm

I see this as a disaster. It's a form of blackmail, in my opinion.
If we stay, major changes will need to be made.

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Permalink Reply by Jaap Verduijn on May 4, 2010 at 2:10pm

Unbelievable? On the contrary - it makes a lot of sense. Say my time is worth $20 an hour and I pay Ning $20 a month for taking care of hosting and all hardware and software stuff of my network, I'm making a nice little profit while contributing to my peace of mind to boot.

The vast majority of my websites are hosted and maintained by myself. Many run BANS with lots of bells and whistles, several run WordPress with lots of tweaks and plug-ins, and then there are one or two that run "others". Both BANS and WordPress take (sometimes considerably!) more than an hour a month to maintain, i.e. cost me more than $20 a month.

During the years I've experimented with several self-hosted social community scripts, but each time I decided that outsourcing the hosting (= let somebody else create, maintain, host and worry about the script) saves money, time and irritation. When it comes to fairly complicated and easily messed-up software like social communities, outsourcing is a much more time- and cost-effective method than self hosting.

I really prefer to pay Ning to do my worrying for me, especially since their worrying turns out to be cheaper than mine. Retropirate's statement "go get a hosting account and some community software and save hundreds a year" will, if generally followed up, turn out to become a disaster for those present Ning users who know next to nothing about hosting and maintaning websites.

Be well!

Jaap Verduijn.