Ning, also known as the official name for 24 Hour Laundry’s project, just launched. I actually had to keep myself from posting early because I was excited about it. Now that I got the word from them with the approval to post, here goes the unveiling.
Ning is, and I quote, “a free online service (or, as we like to call it, a Playground) for building and using social applications. Social apps are web applications that enable anyone to match, transact, and communicate with other people”.
So, what does this mean for the global audience? A whole lot. It means anyone can now get their ideas out there and build a project (some people would call it a mash-up) in a few clicks, with no developer experience. And if you are a developer, you can pop under the hood and change it to your liking, no questions asked.
The reason why I’m excited about it is simple: allowing people to build cool new stuff that they normally wouldn’t (empowering the users) is one of the best things you can do on the Web 2.0 space. If you think about it, back when blogging started it was also about allowing people to do things they weren’t able to before - publish content online. This is it, all over again, but instead of blogs, you get to build cool apps.
This being said, get out there and try it. And we at TechCrunch definitely want to see what you come up with too, so drop us a note if you’re using Ning to build cool stuff. To the 24 Hour Laundry guys: congratulations for the launch!
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All I have to say is this: The longtail of application building has arrived.
Witness:
Choose Your Beer
and:
Tail Rank
Note: TailRank is not the TailRank you might be thinking of and, indeed, includes tails of all kinds — some might not be considered worksafe.
This, of course, will happen a lot if Ning takes off because they would be, in effect, creating a new domain-naming free-for-all.
- Scott
Pathfinder Linden led me here… Ning has such a simple, ringy name. Gonna c-c-check it out.
good post…the question is whether developers find this platform to be flexible both technically and economically.
Like many other dumb startup ideas, this one is offering something the idea behind which cannot be easily explained. I’ve read two descriptions already and still don’t understand what is actually being offered.
Maybe I’m dumb, don’t know, but as I see it all successful products and services (search, email, browser, IM, skype, rss, php etc.) can be explained to a layperson in one sentence. I think in one years time we will not hear a word about Ning anywhere.
I wish the Tech Crunch staff was more critical about the new companies that it profiles and at least tried to apply a simple test of “one line UNDERSTANDABLE explanations” to the ideas/products/services of these companies.
Marek, good comment. It was a bit late last night when we posted.
The fact they only need one acount for al of the benefits of the most popular web 2.0 applications plus the building blocks to create, yeah it’s a good formula. As a comment to only attracting small groups, first many people fail on the first try, the more you try the bigger your chances are, letting your users do this work for you, is the way to go. Second ever heard of the snowball effect? This is what happened in with websites, blogs, podcasting, mashups, i think this is the next step in the evolution of web 2.0 apps. Leveraging the users creativity, by creating the platform is the way to build a big userbase.
Super!
http://search.optionextreme.com/siteindex.php
ok
http://www.loewenfutter.de/
Good comment, Marc. Not sure if there’s any money to earn at all in Web2.0 though.