Move from Ning…. with care
December 9, 2008 – 7:01 am, by Emil @ SkalfaI’ve been thinking about the situation with Ning shutting down adult social networks on its platform.
The problem with free hosted services for social networks is the same with Ning. It’s only a matter of time when your interests go against theirs – monetary, ideological, or whatever else. At least nobody owes you anything – it’s free, what the hell. Nobody approaches your individual problems – this is one reason you can find yourself moving to another place again.
I believe this time people will be more careful with choosing provider for their community sites. One ground rule here is not to change one “walled garden” (a closed place where your community depends on business decisions that the service owners make) for another. Sure, Ning claims that you can get a running copy of your site with your members and data but Ning proved that not to be the case. Currently they have problems with even meaningfully exporting your data. If they had any success with that no adult communities would be seeking new providers now.
Exporting members to another place is evil – you don’t know who many members will survive it. You need to get them to actually respond to your newsletter by moving their activity to the new site, you need to have them get used to changes which every provider has. How many members are you going to lose? 50%? 80%?
1) If you do not see too much value in time invested in growing your community – you can move on and find one of services similar to Ning.
2) If you want control and guarantees you need to bear with the thought that it costs money. A solution like SkaDate might be the choice, given that it has a no-brainer hosted social network site solution. This is freedom. At any point you can opt out for an independent set up, so this is where you stop moving your community between providers.
3) If you want both free and control that’s where you choose WackWall. Solving the problem of free hosted solution and independence is one of the major reasons we are introducing WackWall 2.0 relaunch soon. I will follow up on this specific topic later.
This time the choice should be made by you – not your platform provider. Time and effort to grow a community is your main resource, I believe it should be put on top of your priority list before you start digging again.
Good luck with that.
19 Responses to “Move from Ning…. with care”
I appreciate reading your articles on the recent Ning move gainst “Adult Networks” which is, as per the last update, a wide range of networks and not necessarily a “pornographic” network for heteros, gays or lesbians. It is also medical networks, art networks – anything where nudity is shown. Thinking of multi-million-dollar classic artwork from the last centuries – in case you post a photo of such a masterpiece where a lady shows a naked breast – your network is rated “adult”.
Even discussion boards on topics like “breast feeding” or “safer sex” are “adult” for Ning.
The terms “social networking” got pretty unsocial.
The big problem is the promised availability of contents export for the network creators. It will happen one day. But at that time the networks will be offline and no network creator can inform the members on a possible new location.
It is a problem of timing, it is a problem of “whereto”, it is in simple words – a disaster.
“Create your network for anything”.
Yes, for anything the host wants you to create a network.
I have to go through the Skalfa site to see what is about. But I am encouraged to do so with your 2 articles on “ning and the Adult Sites”.
Thanks!
By Pierre Marc on Dec 9, 2008
Thank you for the article. I had just under 800 members at my adult site The Alter Ego, when I was unceremoniously booted yesterday. I had of course recieved the warnings, but I acvtually think I made a huge mistake ny taking my site to SocialGo. Even though I was a member of Ning Creators, the migration was never offered to me. It was to some, however, I was not offered it. Ning screwed around with us and are about as disingenuous a lot as can be.
My question is this…and I need some help because in reality I am a technotard…..
1) what is the availaability of an 18+ site here?
2) I of course want no Child porn of any type, but can I get some further corespondence from someone on these issues. The socialgo experiment is seemingly a failure, and They are not willing to help me in any way. I have only been able to maintain about 10 percent of my members, and I WANT THEM BACK!
Help ME SOMEBODY!! PLEASE!!!
By Todd Grimm on Jan 7, 2009
I’ve had no problems with Ning. I have 3 networks on the Ning platform. No,my networks aren’t adult sites. I favor Ning over all others I’ve used. Ning is easy to use and build on. I’ve got full control of my networks. I’ve had a Ford Mustang Community since June 2008. I am currently building another network on the Ning platform. Ning is awesome.
By pontiacslut on Jan 28, 2009
I have a major problem that I need help with – FAST! I have an adult site here at wackwall and, even though I have asked repeatedly how to ban members I have gotten no response. Now some idiot from our old site at Ning went and invited children to join this site and I can’t get them off! I don’t want these kids even viewing this stuff. Can somebody please help me. I can also be reached at: 246gt@excite.com
By Secondjag on Feb 6, 2009
You have received reply in the forum.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Feb 9, 2009
All i can say is F*** ning and everything associated with them. They booted me when i asked them over and over again how can i export my date to another site. Did the f***ers bother to answer? No. Why would they..they don’t care about anyone except themselves. F*** them. We should sue their asses for violating our first amendment.
By Josh on Feb 13, 2009
Please keep the communication civil. Thank you.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Feb 16, 2009
can i move my members info and all of the stuff in my site of ning here in wackwall
By guyslounge on Mar 3, 2009
We will need to look at your data to estimate conversion. Request it from Ning.
Thanks.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Mar 4, 2009
Oh this is scary!
I just joined Ning few days ago.
I was already licking my lips thinking I had found the right thing. Now you scare me.
By didier on Mar 17, 2009
Ning is total garbage. It’s run by real shady people. They steal all of your member data and email your members at will.
Anyone who has a ning site should congratulate themselves for helping make ning rich not themselves. a Ning social network is worthless since they decided to merge all networks without anyone approval.
By Bobby B on Mar 19, 2009
I was on ning too. I had a private club, marked private, I hid my private networks from the rest of the ning community, I knew every single member in person and knew they were ALL adults, my club was by invitation only, only the first page was viewable by non members, no one could see inside, and I made sure there are no adult or even saucy images on that first page.
I took every precaution to protect minors and people who may be offended, they still took my networks off line. I also had an advice column since I am a therapist and a SexySexpert
I love helping couples make their life together more fun and teach people new techniques and ways to improve their relationships inside the bedroom and out. It was strictly on helping/educational basis, but because I had graphic descriptions and demo photos and some videos to help my readers understand and learn, it was considered a pornographic site.
I am looking for a host, I copied all my pages and html, but I can not figure out what to do with it now. Would anyone please help me in simple english. I am not a html or java wizard. In fact I know very little about this stuff. I just want my social saucy network on line again and I also want to share my wisdom and help others. Please… I need help.
In case you are wondering. If you can still log in even if your ning network is off line, you can go to VIEW on your browser (top left corner) then PAGE SOURCE when the window with the codes opens do SELECT ALL and copy it, then if you have a way do save page as, always do as HTML.
The problem is what do I do with it then?
I hate NING, I wish I had never heard about their stupid network. I wish to God, I had not spend MONTHS and MONTHS creating, perfecting writing and inviting people I like and know. I wish their whole site collapses somehow. I hate them.
Which ever network now helps me and gets my two networks on line will be advertised and blasted about how wonderful they are! EVEN on NING to help others break FREE of them, I will shout from the rooftops GO HERE, THEY ARE WONDERFUL. Please HELP ME. Ning only gave me till Sept 17 to move all my networks
By DrGraceG on Sep 10, 2009
What a typical case that we’ve been talking about for almost a year.
First I will be the one to tell the hard news: You can do nothing with saved page source code. It gets created dynamically and can’t function as a website.
You are lucky if you can get some info of your members from Ning, like email addresses. Anyways, if you re-invite them to another place you’re gonna lose a lot of them. Some people will just not be excited to start it all over. This is the problem with any service like that, because each of them is a walled garden. Ning is also already big enough so it tries to play we-are-the-internet game by forcing everyone to have Ning ID and not assisting with exporting data off their database.
We feel your pain. That is why we’ve been talking about freedom and are working on new WackWall platform which will be open source. Meaning that you will be able to not only take your members but the whole application too, and seamlessly move elsewhere if you choose to. We’ll be launching the new network on October. So please watch news. Too bad we can’t help you right now and nobody seems to be able to.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Sep 10, 2009
bout ning?… totally disgusting…
until now, my site cannot be open until now… also my account in ning… i hope that i completely satisfy to create my own site here in wackwall…
peace yah…
By shawncarlo on Sep 29, 2009
when will this new wackwall thing launch have you a date in october in mind? and how will i know will you e-mail me? i need a new site i was with ning too but got bored with them
By louise breadmore on Oct 10, 2009
Ning is a pain in the ass, they also closed my site on there, and i’m now looking around for another host. Ning gave no warning.. it just closed it. what a pain.
By Sxlondonfem on Nov 2, 2009
Guys, check out Xitti – the adult version of WackWall.
This is the “big news” I’ve been talking about.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Feb 19, 2010
Hello,
I feel grateful that i found your site. Am in the startup of building a community based web site for my local.
I forgot how did I found ning.com. but what bothering me are question about,
” if my community getting huge., can I move it to my own server with it’s member database as well”
It is okay if I share the profit with ning, consider they serve hosting and software development, but to think ning also ‘have’ my community is just too much.
Thank for you all, I have more information and more alternative to built this community.
Going to try wackwall now =)
By Windo on Feb 28, 2010
So recently i was shut down by Ning. I had over 1600 members. They wouldnt help me export my members and they wouldnt answer my emails when trying to do so. They even had the nerve to over charge me for several months until i actually read over my bill. They refunded the money to account that was closed and i had to wait for weeks to receive the money they owed me. Ning is hell and so is there team.!!!!
By Ciara Smith on Nov 3, 2011