WidgetLaboratory

After spending a day or so on the new "Ning.com" site (NingBook), we have to admit... FaceBook was never this much fun!

Why?

On FaceBook, all the participants are aware and informed in advance that they are joining FaceBook. As a result, people tend to exercise discretion when joining a group, posting images, making friendships, etc. Since most people use LinkedIn for professional relationships and FaceBook for personal, there is an informed consent as to what one is doing when participating. Anyone who chooses to mix their business and pleasure on FaceBook is subject to getting some unwanted public attention.

Thankfully for curious types like us, NingBook saves everyone the trouble of making informed decisions or providing informed consent. Instead, they just unilaterally went ahead and opened up years of private meta-data about networks, friendships, members, and relationships. It is now endlessly entertaining to browse the data from previously private networks that has been exposed for all to see.

As a result of their bravado, Ning can now claim to potential buyers that they have a FaceBook competitor with more than 20 million "members". No matter that these people didn't know that had joined... Ning seems oblivious to the moral and contractual dilemma that it has created for itself by changing their TOS (once again) and then abducting these members from the individual Network Creators.

Besides the published promises that Network Creators own their own data and membership, Ning has also been accepting premium fees for "white label" services by a percentage of networks. The creators and members of these networks have been relying (to their detriment) on the promise that Ning was a platform for them to build their own membership, brand, and niche. Tough Luck. The release of NingBook demonstrates the last in what now appear to have been a series of carefully planned steps.

Here are a couple examples of the fun things that can now occur on NingBook:

1. NETWORK RELATIONSHIPS: It is now possible for anyone (including a client or competitor) to see all the Networks on which one is a member. Don't want your CPA colleagues to know that you are into collecting miniature dolls?... OOPS, too late!
   
2. FRIEND RELATIONSHIPS: Professional friend data is mixed with personal friend data. This means that unintended (and in some cases "disasterous") relationships are revealed from previously private networks.  Imagine a person's surprise when they discover that they have been "outed" because they befriended someone on a professional network who just happens to be into some more "private" stuff on their own personal time.  "Funny, I didn't realize that my friend Principal Johnson from the High School Network was into wearing pink panties... and, wait... is that STEVE from accounting too? Yikes!"
   
3. LOSS OF BRAND, LOYALTY AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: Network Creators who spent years building brand recognition, customer loyalty, and competitive advantage on "their" Networks now get the special treat of having all their relationships and members merged into NingBook along with those of their competition. A search on Ning.com for "Recruiting" reveals the silky smooth ease with which one can now conduct competitive research across ALL the 424 recruiting networks. Too bad that these Network Creators had the reasonable expectation that they owned their brand, members, and white-label. It is slightly ironic that these Network Creators will now be "recruiting" members for NingBook instead of building their own online presence.
   
   

   

4. OPT-OUT, NOT IN: NingBook features are all "opt-out" instead of "opt-in" for each individual member. One can't do this globally for all members of a Network. This provides Ning with the convenient excuse of having to directly contact each and every one of your network members in order to inform them that your network was actually built on the Ning platform. "Come on and see all your stuff on one convenient home page instead of going back to the individual Network". Too bad that all these NC's were paying Ning sizeable premiums every month for white-label services in order to hide that very fact. Se la vie!
   
5. INFLATED MEMBERSHIP NUMBERS: The opt-out requirement ensures that most members will never make their profile private. Most never joined NingBook and don't know what it is. Instead they joined a particular niche network. It is likely that most members simply ignored the recent message from Ning as spam and have taken no action. This works to Ning's advantage by allowing them to publish hugely inflated numbers to the tech community, even though these "members" have no clue that they belong to NingBook.
   
6. PLAIN TEXT URL SEARCH: It is super convenient that all the names of members and networks are all in plain text. Unlike FaceBook where you have unique numerical ID's like 12312asd23 to make it hard for a human to exploit, Ning made it easy. Just type in the name of your favorite member or network and you're good to go. http://www.ning.com/kyle/networks Sweet!
   
7. BETTER THAN RSS FEED: Why bother visiting the main site of any Network Creator who is paying large premiums to Ning to run their own Ads meant for YOU to see? It is SO much easier to simply keep tabs on everything from your own NingBook home page... Ad Free!
   
   

   

Ning has demonstrated a clear pattern of contempt for its customers, especially Network Creators. Several times now they have changed direction in the middle of the night and taken-away features, rights, or services and then explained it away with Orwellian Doublespeak which seems to be detached from the objective facts.

Network Creators on Ning should take a good look at what has happened now that their hard-work has been absconded. With Ning having locked-up their network and reneged on their written promise to provide migration tools to anyone who asked, there are few attractive options. Nevertheless, here are a couple ideas to start:

1. Make a written demand to Ning that you be provided with your complete network content, as previously promised by Gina Bianchini. As she stated, "(w)e will soon offer a similar mechanism for content so that it won’t require a sophisticated understanding of our APIs to back-up or migrate the content of your network somewhere else"
   
   
   
2. Create a free starter or Premium site at SocialGO so that you can immediately migrate your members with WidgetLaboratory's member migration tool. This will provide you with a new "home" while you work on the transition. We believe that SocialGO may also provide a discounted incentive to anyone who moves to Premium from Ning. The LAB will assist anyone who needs help with making the transition to SocialGO
   
3. Stop Paying for Premium on Ning. After all, you no longer own your members, network privacy, or white-label... so why continue to pay Ning? Save the money and let Ning put Google Ads back on your site. Then start building your own custom site on SocialGO, since they have a written guarantee that your network, member, and data are all yours and this will not change. WidgetLaboratory will show you how you can use your old Ning site as a free "archive" which can be linked and accessed from inside of your new SocialGO site. SocialGO has an OPEN-API and WidgetStore, so you will have an infinite flexibility into the future for turning your site into something unique... and not simply slap on a few Open-Social toys while you send your members to Ning
   
4. Spread the Word. The reason that Ning has been able to take such extraordinary measures at the expense of Network Creators is that they closed their public forums and discussions, and dispersed or expelled any disgruntled Network Creators so that no dissent could escape or grow. No Longer. You are welcome to use WidgetLaboratory and SocialGO as the forum for airing your grievances and start fresh. WidgetLaboratory believes in an open and free discussion of all topics related to the products and social networking. Trolls can stay home, but customers with legitimage issues or complaints are always welcome.

Though it would be nice to imagine that things will get better on Ning... it's clearly not going to happen. The last year has been spent on unfurling their original game plan for creating NingBook.

Ning's latest action demonstrates that they have zero concern over individual Network Creators. If you happen to be one,  why not return the favor and vote with your wallet. Stop paying Ning for any premium service and move your network and members to SocialGO where you can get what you really want and need.