Why Ning’s Shut Down of Services is Like a High School Break-Up
Me and Ning in good times
Ning is changing their business model starting with firing 40% of staff and pulling the plug on millions of free networks to focus on “Premium” ones. They need to make changes to make money. Fair enough. But to not reach out to their customers about it? Did I really have to find out about it on twitter? Come on!
No notice was sent to network creators. I know because as a Ning customer and Network Creator of BrandTampa.com, I receive a monthly bill from them in my inbox. Where’s the love? It’s out the window along with any sense of trust or loyalty that Ning customers might have felt for the company.
Me and Gina before the break-up
Let me back up a moment and say for the record, Ning has been good to me. Their platform allowed me to pursue a vision and create a network that has over 1500 people who are share similar interests in my local community. Heck, last summer I even went to NY to attend a Network Creators party because I felt such a connection with the brand. But now things have changed.
I should have seen it coming last month when CEO Gina Bianchini left and was replaced by Jason Rosenthal. Now he’s ending Ning’s relationship with about a million networks. It’s like a high school break-up. One morning you wake up and decide you don’t like your boyfriend or girlfriend any more. So you get a friend to pass them a note from you saying, “it’s not you, it’s me” and then proceed to ignore one another in the hallways. Except in this case it’s a leaked email which is now all over the internet which makes it harder to ignore than an old-fashioned note.
If Ning wants to salvage the relationship with their paying customers (outside of the 4 networks Rosenthal mentions in his leaked email) it’s time to call PR and start cleaning up the mess. Or not. Maybe Ning is just moving on. And a million Ning Network Creators will have to do the same.
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13 Responses to “Why Ning’s Shut Down of Services is Like a High School Break-Up”
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I think we all understand the importance of change and growth in business, sure but to do it so badly and to treat the very people who actually put you in this position with so much disrespect is a bad start to the new change.
Excellent article despire the turn of events that brought it round, by the way caught this via David Risley
[...] an article about it. Here’s another. (<— This one likens the whole thing to a high school [...]
Got any advice for a newbie like me who was just about to start using their premium services? And a big THANK YOU for a very timely Tweet.
Joshua – I’ve been using their premium services for awhile and have been happy. Just not happy about new mode of no communication. If you want to brainstorm about network best practices let’s talk Sustainable St. Pete & Brand Tampa sometime.
TheInfoPreneur – I’m glad you enjoyed the article & thanks for telling me David led you here. I saw you applied to win his Crush It! Contest – you’ve been busy the last few months. I was impressed!
[...] wild search for alternatives to Ning is keeping many social network creators more than busy, especially in the educational sector. Migrating your social network from [...]
A free alternative to Ning is mixxt.com. The functionalities are very similar to what Ning offers but with some additions.
mixxt’s most prominent advantages are strong Community Management features, powerful sub-groups, full collaboration features, and advanced customization.
The philosophy is different from Ning’s: it’s based on White Labeled solutions for large institutions and enterprises, as well as Freemium services.
As for now, primarily education, work-related and event networks use mixxt networks.
Ning users wanting to import their network to mixxt find a useful tool in mixxt’s Ning importer (http://bit.ly/ningalt).
If you want to give your own mixxt network a try, check out this site (http://mixxt.com)!
Following their high school break up model, I’m about to break up with them, before they can break up with me. Did you see their new plan is to integrate with Cafe Press to sell stuff, and Heyzap so your members can play games…paid games. I don’t see this going anywhere.
WordPress will give me better SEO and Facebook connect. What would I be missing out on? Let’s chat this week about it.
[...] had a similar issue, not with blogs, but with communities when Ning.com suddenly announced that it wasn’t going to do free anymore because it wasn’t profitable. And the writing group that I was a part of had to go move all [...]
great blog thank you
Dear Julia,
I’m a little confused. Does this mean that Brand Tampa will cease to be? I hope not, I find it’s a very useful network. The members are both friendly and talented.
sincerely,
Nick
Thanks Nick! Brand Tampa is carrying on.
Ning is changing their business model starting with firing 40% of staff and pulling the plug on millions of free networks to focus on
Shame that so many people lost their jobs, but I guess that’s business.