As we were working on some social networking site reviews, the Star Reviews staff landed on the Ning website. We immediately loved their tagline 'Create Your Own Social Network for Anything' which of course, perked our ears. Though the site didn't appear to have too many frills, we always give it a chance. See what we encountered below.
What’s New?
- Ning Blog – blog promoting some of the new, popular, or unique social networks being hosted by the site
Star Reviews Favorite Feature:
Network badges – To advertise your social network, you and your other members can embed these badges into their own web sites to drive traffic back to you.
Ning Features:
- Ability to create forums, discussions, and blogs in your social network
- Upload videos, music, and photos to your network
- Customize your social network with your own brand and other elements
- Between 80,000 and 100,000 social networks to choose from
About Ning:
Ning was created by Gina Bianchini and Marc Andreessen (co-founded of Netscape and co-creator of Mosaic) and launched in 2004 as a way to open up social networks and allow for more diverse offerings on the Internet. Ning is different from MySpace or Friendster because instead of simply joining a larger network of people, Ning members create their own networks (basically each Ning user can create his or her own MySpace through the service).
Finding Friends at Ning:
You can meet new people in two ways at Ning. First, you can create your own social network which members can join. Second, you can find a social network to join. At Ning, you’ll find more than 5,000 pages of existing social networks so looking through all of them can be a real challenge. Unfortunately, the only way to search through them is by clicking on a list of tags on the right side of the page. The tags don’t tell you much; they consist of words or phrases such as “school,” “sex,” or “free.”
Signing Up & Creating a Network:
Signing up for a Ning ID is quick and simple. You simply enter your desired username and create a password. Then you can either search for existing networks to join or develop your own network. To start your own, you begin by naming the network and creating a URL. Next you’ll be able to create your network by adding descriptions, choosing features (RSS feeds, photos, etc.), picking a color theme, and deciding what questions to ask potential members before they join your network. Then review your settings and launch your network. As long as you want something basic, the process is easy. Of course, you can make it as complex as you want, particularly if your have programming or web development experience.
Pricing & Ads:
Ning’s services are completely free to both regular users and businesses. Most of the site itself is free of ads but you will have advertisements placed along the side of every page of your social network. If you are a business you can pay to add premium services to your membership, including the following:
- Use your own domain name = $4.95 per month
- Run ads on your network = $19.95 per month
- Do not have Ning’s ad on your network = $7.95 per month
- Increase your quota = $9.95 per month per unit (each unit is equal to 5 GB of storage and 100 GB of bandwidth)
Customer Support:
Even though Ning may be unique in some ways, the site offers the same two customer support options available at most of the top social networking sites: FAQ’s and email support. The good news is the site offers plenty of FAQ’s and arranges them in an easy to use way. For example, you can click on tabs such as “Using Ning” or “Social Network Features” to find FAQ’s on those specific topics.
To contact Ning, you need to use their online form and first select the nature of your question/problem. After submitting our question, we received an automatic response letting us know the question had been received. Two days later we received our answer which did seem to be written by an actual person not just cut and paste from the terms of service. While 48 hours is a fast response in some industries, it was fairly slow compared to other social networking sites.
Upside:
Free. Customizable social network.
Downside:
Poor search options. Comparatively slow email response time. Ads on social network pages.
Summary:
Ning does win some points for trying something unique. Instead of just following in the footsteps of Friendster and MySpace, its creators wanted to branch out and let the public create their own customizable social networks. However, Ning’s weaknesses prevent it from being ranked as one of the best social network sites on the Internet. For one, finding networks without a strong search engine is too difficult. Plus, the advertising along the side of every page is annoying and the customer support response just wasn’t as fast as the competition’s. Overall, Ning has potential and with continuing improvement might be able to gain in popularity. Right now though, they just don’t stack up to the competition.