WidgetLaboratory

We realize that many of you are flustered by the current situation that you face with your 18+ Networks. With Ning giving you the rush out the door, and SocialGO not quite yet out of BETA (albeit ...very...very... close), you are trapped in the middle.

What can you do? Here are some easy steps that will let you maintain continuity in your network at the same time that you set yourself up to be READY when SocialGO comes out of BETA:

1) Set up your new site at SocialGO if you have not done so already. During BETA you can create a safe harbor for your members to join and continue to participate and interact. Even without a drop of your old content, you can stylize the new site and give members the power to contribute in all of the same ways that they have previously on your Ning site. When the time comes, any of these sites that qualify for 18+ status will be automatically converted without fuss. In the meantime, your members will feel comforted by the familiar look and feel of your site and their ability to continue participating;

2) Download and archive all your Ning content (or as much as you can obtain). The instructions on how to do this are located HERE. While most people are not finding that Ning is providing the content in any useable format... at least you will have a good majority of your old photos and videos. Be patient, but act quickly... there is likely a lot of content and it will take a long time to download (and may not work the first time from what we hear from those who have tried). This old content could potentially be used, or uploaded manually, to your new site at a later time;

3) Download and cleanup your member CSV file from your Ning site. You can use Excel or any other spreadsheet management tool that handles Comma Separated Value files. By cleaning-up your membership list and keeping a local copy, you can remove unwanted members then migrate the rest to SocialGO using our automated member migration tool;

4) Prepare your members for the transition and keep them informed of what is happening. Remember, your members enjoy your site because of the unique content and editorial style that you offer, not because of the technological platform you utilize. If you provide the details and "blow by blow" updates to your members that explain that you have had no choice but to switch platforms at the last minute, they will understand... and likely support you. Just share with them the fact that you are moving to an exciting new "home" that will allow your site and their membership to THRIVE with new features, tools, and friendly policies. When they realize that the "fear" of being deleted is being removed, they will provide you the patience and understanding that you require during this challenging time;

5) Give them something to get excited about.  Use this transition time to brainstorm with your members and survey them (use Polldaddy for a free poll) about the features and ideas they love from the old site, and what they would like to see on the new site. Make Lemonade from lemons and use this transition as a way to REVAMP your features, remove things that were not popular, and add new features that are desired. WidgetLaboratory will be your one-stop resource for getting these ideas and features up and running on SocialGO;

6) Stay in tune with the LAB for our exciting developments designed specifically for 18+ Networks. We have a really unique product that we will outline for you shortly. This may very well revolutionize the way that you can operate your mature content social network, and monetize it as well. We have been discussing this with many of the larger site creators to get their opinions, and thusfar it has been very positive. We will keep you informed about the developments, but in a nutshell... this "Project X" may be something that will provide you the magic formula and tool to capitalize (and profit!) from your social network.

We've been hearing hundreds of success stories from site owners who have migrated their photo content off of Ning using our LAB NINJA Photo Backup and Migration tool.

A few of you with super large networks have reported that your migration is hanging after several hundred or several thousand images.

Here are a couple of tips for anyone who is having trouble:

1) Please take note of the image that is the last one downloaded in your local folder. If you've tried twice to download and it hangs on the same photo, then go into your Ning site and DELETE that image... it has something wrong with its attributes. Then try to download from scratch. Should work;

2) Remember that some of your original photos may be VERY LARGE and thus take a LONG TIME compared with others that are smaller. Ning has a cache system for images that might make it look like it has hung-up, when in fact it's just taking a long time. You may have to leave your machine sitting for some time if you have thousands of images;

3) Make sure you have downloaded and installed the latest version of Flash (version 10).

Try these in this order and you should be fine.

There have been a few folks reluctant to make the move to SocialGO during the Beta period because they've not yet seen a large variety of layouts or style examples. While we've covered this topic previously and tried to assure everyone that the drag and drop interface and new template library will elminate this doubt once and for all... it is always good to throw a little tidbit out in the meantime.

CSS has always been the backbone of any good website design. Even with templates, the judicious use of CSS can "transform" a site from "blah" to "wow" with just a few tweaks. As part of our ongoing push to educate and assist those of you making the move to SocialGO, today we want to show you a very slick design that has been created by Ryan from GymHookups.

Ryan has indicated that this is a work in progress, but we were impressed with his clever use of CSS to reverse the position of the right column, provide some breathing room in the central feature area, and give a clean and contemporary feel to the site. There is also a customized navigation menu bar. Ryan has cleverly made good use of the Pages & Tabs function to add advertising in the header, footer, and below the fold areas, in addition to adding a nice Store into a dedicated page.

We'll revisit Ryan's site upon its completion, but in the meantime, here are some screen grabs to stimulate your own creative ideas:

Here's a quick and easy way to remove the title from the top of your Network. This is useful if you are using a header image or just don't want a title for any reason.

First, go into your Admin Center using the Launch Admin button on the left side of your site:

Second, go into your Ads & Custom HTML section:

Third, copy and past the following CSS into the Page Meta Data section:

<style>

div#header h1 a {
font-size:0;
}

</style>

Last, hit the Update Button, then return to your network, and you are done. Easy!!

Many of you have been asking for improvements in the way that SocialGO handles the network Time Zone for blog and forum posts. Ask and ye' shall receive! The team at SocialGO has turned on this feature.

Check out the screen shot below for more details, and ask us for further help if this is not obvious.

Network Creators set the Network Time and Location zone from the "Launch Admin" Button on left side, then click on "Network Details" to get to this page

Hi Gang,

just wanted to let you know that we are creating a nice library of "how-to" videos for styling your SocialGO site. One of the highlights of these videos will be how to not only how to create fantastic NEW sites, but also how to keep the look and feel of any site that you may have already developed on another platform.

Below are a couple quick screen-grabs from the video, showing how one of our clients has kept a very consistent look between his old site and his new SocialGO site, and thus has removed any "shock" to his members from making the transition. He's also gone one step further by integrating a link button on his new site to direct these members back to the old site for "Archive" purposes after the move has been completed. You will notice as well that the full base of members has made their way over with the help of our Migration tools.

ORIGINAL SITE

SOCIALGO SITE

Look for the first of these videos coming out soon, and an announcement of other online resources and assistance for making SocialGO your choice for building your monetized online community.

Some quick tips from the Evil Genius on how to grab a copy of your member CSV file from a Ning site and how to turn your old Ning site into a free Archive for all your SocialGO members!

Here is the code you need to paste into your Advanced CSS box if you are following the suggestions contained in the video for archiving your Ning site:

<p>#xg_tab_invite { display:none !important; }</p>

<p>#xg_tab_profile { display:none !important; }</p>

One of the cool things about the SocialGo architecture is that it is compatible with an enormous range of free and useful third-party tools, widgets and gadgets... FREE right out of the box. Unlike other Social Networking platforms you are allowed to even use Javascript, which opens up a tremendous range of possibilities.

Above is an example using Google Translate, one of the best and most accurate translation engines on the market. It is free and easy to install to your SocialGo site. Simply grab the Javascript code from this page HERE and then paste it into a Homepage HTML widget that you create in your Admin Dashboard.

The result is that you can have instant and awesome translation of your entire SocialGo site done "on the fly" with the added benefit that the native English is always at hand in a popup bubble.

Give it a try and see for yourself, or check it out on the LAB in on our LATEST page near the upper right corner.

Evil Genius shows you two of the newest features that are STANDARD on SocialGo:

1) Ability to add and edit your Embedded video thumbnails;

2) Advanced Member Search Capability