February 27, 2007

Ning Demo Video

Michael Arrington

47 comments »

If you haven’t taken the time to try out the new Ning today, Robert Scoble has filmed an excellent demo of the product (basically the same demo I saw yesterday) from CEO Gina Bianchini. There’s a lot of coverage from other bloggers as well.

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Oobie Doobie Kanoobie

February 27th, 2007 at 9:55 am

wow - must be ning day
David

February 27th, 2007 at 10:05 am

That is one sexy CEO/Demo….She can Ning me anytime!!
...some Drifter

February 27th, 2007 at 10:08 am

seeing a relatively young, slender woman as a ceo is like a breath of fresh air from the typical overweight elderly male stereotype
CSamarin

February 27th, 2007 at 10:09 am

Hey Marc or lady in the video! I hope you read this and I want royalties!

You should add to your agreement something where if a social network gets HUGE using Ning and eventually want to build something custom and move ALL their Ning members over to it…they have to pay a fee per user and then you zip up ALL their data for them and send it over.

I don’t know what the price per user would be but something where you guys make a nice profit and where the creator of the social network can afford making the move. If you have 100,000+ dedicated members it would be worth it.

This will offer potential creators and promoters of the social network assurance that if all their hard work pays off and they create a network that is worth something they go “legit” at some point.

I think you will see A LOT more hardcore entrepreneurs giving it a try then.

Thanks,
Chris
vbk

February 27th, 2007 at 10:17 am

This is great. Now if there were only a prepackaged group of “celebrities” to purchase and add to your network–just to get it started. People pay for stranger things: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA.....090542238.
Oobie Doobie Kanoobie

February 27th, 2007 at 10:27 am

Shall we bring them a shrubbery?
(maybe only brits will get that)
Fabricio Zuardi

February 27th, 2007 at 10:44 am

Hi Chris, all public data on Ning can be accessed through a REST api, so, apart from users private data, it shouldnt be difficult to transport your user’s public content from one place to another.
lemon obrien

February 27th, 2007 at 11:19 am

isn’t this like a beefed up yahoo groups?
Rich

February 27th, 2007 at 11:37 am

SSSSSSHHHHHWWWWWWNNNIIINNNGGGGG!
Apo Pai

February 27th, 2007 at 11:38 am

I thought the goal was to have one social network for everyone, or at least a federation of social networks that communicate, and not a million different social networks. How many profiles is one supposed to maintain? Social networks ought to be people-centric (I have one profile were I list all my hobbies) and not activity-centered (I belong to one network per activity). Well, maybe I am wrong, just a thought.
coglethorpe

February 27th, 2007 at 11:39 am

Ning is like its CEO: pretty.

The problem with Ning is that I’ve encountered three different errors using the site so far. Signing up was slow and hung Firefox the first time I tried it. Then I hit an error page (it said it would tell a developer of the problem). Then I got “Can’t load template file /apps/7/E10/417/idolnetwork/lib/XG_Message/notify-activity.php” when commenting on the American Idol Fan Central page.

I haven’t interfaced with the CEO, so I can’t say if she produces similar errors.
Casey Edwinson

February 27th, 2007 at 11:43 am

I think I just blew up Ning. Site is down after I signed up!.

Casey
Phil

February 27th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

Ago Pai,

I think you’re completely wrong. The most interesting communities are build around given activities/interests. Digg was originally centered around technology and Youtube is centered around Video. It’s obvious that focusing on given activities and/or interests is the way to go if you want to create an interesting community. I agree you’ll find lots of stupid people on both sites but there is always something interesting to share or to talk about on these sites.

Communities that have no real focus like Myspace are a waste of time. Myspace is a huge mess for bored people who have no real interests in life, aside from showing off, stalking and spamming. Try to have a constructive discussion over there. I have a slogan for Myspace: Made for monkeys, used by humans. You get the point here.
Andrew

February 27th, 2007 at 12:07 pm

boring….
tr101

February 27th, 2007 at 12:07 pm

Gina is HOT.
Chris

February 27th, 2007 at 12:08 pm

All right, come on, there has got to be at least some negative comments … are we seeing a new generation of fanboys?
sf

February 27th, 2007 at 12:28 pm

Ning is cool!!! Kudos to them.

However on a more critical note, I ‘ll have to agree with Ago Pai. No, I am not criticizing Ning - I’m questioning the feasibility/sustainibility of numberous ideas out here with little value. It’s easy to get excited as a techie, however, thinking as an ordinary user, I need a break. Just to give you an idea what I’m talking about, see the list below for the websites/services I currently use:

gmail
yahoo mail
work mail
yahoo groups (at least 7)
myspace
orkut
facebook
my school’s alumni network
hotmail
msn
YM
gtalk
AIM
digg
delicious
NING
craigslist
letsgo
and many other…

Instead of making my life simpler, technology has made my life very complex. Yes, I do enjoy these services - but again don’t be fooled by excitement of a techie; think from point of view of an ordinary user.
Ed

February 27th, 2007 at 1:19 pm

<boner>
I thought this was well-done, informative demo.
</boner>
Raj Anand

February 27th, 2007 at 3:53 pm

Ning is indeed awesome. But my question is using their software would Joe Blogs reach critical mass i.e. will a community on Ning be worth millions like myspace, bebo etc.

The answer in reality maybe is NO! Building a community takes more than just fancy software. It needs a hook, constant moderation and total control. The owner of the community needs to be able to decide exactly how it should look (every bit).

If a company is going down this route then it should consider totally open sourcing the software. Or alternatively provide a complete package i.e. conceptualising, reskinning and maintaining the website and charge a on-going monthly fee (taking the pressure of the community owner).
Drama 2.0

February 27th, 2007 at 4:25 pm

lemon: apparently only you, I and a few other posters think Ning looks like Yahoo Groups in a sexy Web 2.0 package. I’m glad I’m not the only one or I would have to question my sanity. I guess the bad thing about this (for Ning) is that if everybody has forgotten about Yahoo Groups, it might be an indicator of what will happen to Ning at some point. Of course, Yahoo Groups was formerly eGroups, which it purchased during the first bubble and I think Ning has a good shot at getting acquired by a company like Google. Kudos to any startup that can Web 2.0ify a startup from Bubble 1.0 and sell it. It would be a fun experiment to take a concept and business plan from Bubble 1.0, add “social” aspects to it and see if one could obtain funding in this market.
Matt

February 27th, 2007 at 4:36 pm

Ning is indeed an interesting way to have another presence on the web and kudos to them on the launch.

But…I agree with SF and Ago Pai. A service should make it easy for a leader setup a custom group AND make an member’s interaction with their multiple groups easy. With any service, an end user usually gets to the point where they just want relevant information from their relevant groups without jumping around to different sites…
Steven Ickman

February 27th, 2007 at 7:05 pm

So what’s wrong with having a fancier competitor to Yahoo! Groups? Has Yahoo! Groups been doing a lot of innovation in this space as of late? When was the last time they added new features?

Having thought a lot about this space myself I can tell you there’s a lot of innovation that could be done here. Over and above what both Yahoo! Groups and Ning have shown.

Competition drives innovation…

-Steve
Gina Fan

February 27th, 2007 at 7:18 pm

Gina is Really Hot.

Just for that we should all be using Ning at least once a day and buy a premium feature now and then
pdizzlle

February 27th, 2007 at 7:32 pm

she is kinda cute for a CEO of web 2.0 company….

i tried using the application and it was WAY too slow for my appetite so I will give it another chance tomorrow.
xxdesmus

February 27th, 2007 at 7:38 pm

She didn’t even have to say anything …I was already hooked before she even started talking, oh…and Ning looks excellent (although at the moment it has been trampled to death and is currently not responding).
Hashim

February 27th, 2007 at 7:48 pm

What’s up with all of these falsely flattering sexist comments?
Gina Bianchini

February 27th, 2007 at 8:40 pm

Hey Guys!

We has a bug tonight, brought the service down, fixed it, and were up again within 45 minutes. This isn’t a scalability and load thing, it’s actually a bug we introduced last night, thought we fixed earlier today, and just saw again. We have a new fix which we’ll be rolling out shortly.

If we can’t be perfect, at least we’ll be responsive and let you know what’s going on.

Thanks!
Marc Andreessen

February 27th, 2007 at 8:58 pm

And yes, one of the ways we are innovating is in bugs that will not die :-).
AnonCoward

February 27th, 2007 at 10:02 pm

Look, I have to say this, this is the age of keeping it real, right?

I was an early adopter of Ning, and I love it even though it was kind of hard to work on without PHP skills. The staff was very helpful, and attentive (they continually surprised me with this and won me over) and I got what I needed and I continue to use Ning. First and foremost, everyone there has been a great help and has the right attitude about how to launch this kind of company. As long as they keep they same attitude and ability to grow and change with the market, I think they will win.

Okay.

Now let me ruin this post (in the eyes of some) by saying: sweet fancy moses! I had no idea Gina was that beautiful! She is the secret weapon. Amanda Congwho? Give me a Gina vodcast now and you have a dedicated viewer. Momma mia!
Jaafer

February 27th, 2007 at 10:59 pm

Looks like Techcrunch traffic might have hit Ning too hard. I keep getting errors when trying to create my social network.

I’m patient however, and will keep checking back. Ning is definately a great service for entrepreneurs in the social network space. The customization is key.

A HUGE service that could result from Ning is that by eliminating development costs, great ideas can be brought to the ‘alpha stage’ for presenting for seed financing.

I hope its working as promised soon. Great job Gina and team!

Thanks,
Jaafer
http://digitalu.wordpress.com
sf

February 27th, 2007 at 11:45 pm

Folks at Ning -

I can’t believe it, you are storing/emailing passwords in clear?! Not something I would have expected from you folks!
Sundar Krishnamurthy

February 27th, 2007 at 11:56 pm

Will there be APIs for adding 3rd party widgets (or “Features” as Ning calls it) in the future? I didn’t see that mentioned anywhere in the docs. Also, will these be added to the Features palette once (or if) approved by Ning?

Ning folks: some of the related questions in the”For Developer” section accessible from http://documentation.ning.com/ are currently broken or referring to non-existent Ning features.
Gabe

February 28th, 2007 at 12:16 am

To The TechCrunch Editor:

Can you please explain your comment moderation policy?
Why do you let these sexist comments go public?
Would you allow such comments to go public if they were demeaning to ethnic or religious groups?

In reaction to criticisms of your editorial policies, you have stated that it’s your blog and you have the right to publish what you please. Then you also have the power to decide which comments you accept. Are there no standards by which you decline admission to the comments club?
Yohay

February 28th, 2007 at 12:50 am

Mega Social Network indeed.
Michal Frackowiak

February 28th, 2007 at 12:58 am

I would be rich if I had such a CEO

the video is boring anyway

michal
john ferm

February 28th, 2007 at 6:29 am

Gabe,
I might not agree w/ the comments regarding this CEO being “hot”, but get real (point of fact…she is attractive). You made your point, even though some people might take offense to your idea of censoring posts. Welcome to America, where you can say what you want and not get thrown in jail. Michael and/or his editors have the final say in what is posted. If they decide to remove posts, wonderful. If they decide to let posts stay up, wonderful. There’s a reason Freedom of speech was prioritized as the First Amendment to The U.S. Constitution.

As for Ning….it’s got some bugs (as expected), but I think it has a good chance of doing well w/ users who want a turn-key SN site w/ basic functionality.
Tom Romary

February 28th, 2007 at 7:51 am

Very cool. Ning provides numerous ways to explore ideas and connect with people. Lots of potential here. While I’m not a MySpace active user (I have a profile, but it’s not relevant to me personally…if I were 19 it probably would), I may actually use Ning.

Typical of an early beta, there are a couple of problems that I encountered (latency + seemingly broken stuff + things not clear). I joined a “social network” and entered a “chatter comment” and it seemed to go nowhere. I’m not sure how/where these are supposed to show up. When I went to post another chatter comment, it told me I needed to be a member (which I already was). So then I entered a blog posting and it never posted.

By the way: I would use a more real- world name for “social network” like “group” or “club”? (’Social network’ is such a silicon valley insider term, and I think MySpace has it right with the term “a place for friends” for the mass audience)

Overall, I can see through the early beta trip ups, and I think they’re onto something compelling.

Last, with all due respect to the accolades on the blog, I still think my wife is way hotter than any of the execs at Ning (especially after 3 kids).
whisper

February 28th, 2007 at 8:32 am

And not, one of the ways we are innovating is in bugs that will not die :-).
maruyasu-grape@world.odn.ne.jp
Chris

February 28th, 2007 at 2:24 pm

Alas,

Must be frustrating to have the site down during the launch. Marc … I must admit, I expected more from you!
Brian Dixon

February 28th, 2007 at 2:31 pm

Ning team - Love the product! Great things from the Ning camp.

To SF and Ago Pai and members with multiple profiles on multiple social networks the solution your looking for to manage these are at http://www.ProfileLinker.com . It’s a company that was also profiled by techcrunch found here:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006.....etworking/

I’m a co-founder. Check it out. It manages all your profiles providing message aggregation along with friend updates across all your networks.

Enough promotion. Love the video ning and can’t wait for more updates. I think the name alone gets people hooked.
-Brian
Marc Andreessen

February 28th, 2007 at 2:42 pm

Hi all — thanks for all the comments — the temporary outages we’ve had in the last two days have been very frustrating because we can’t even say they were caused by the huge surge in traffic that we did get — but our engineering team has been working incredibly hard around the clock. Things SHOULD be much better going forward. If we’ve inconvenienced anyone, please email us at ceo at our company name dot com and we will comp our premium services to make up for it.
Bruce Lee

March 1st, 2007 at 9:53 am

I second the need-more-beautiful-female-tech-company-CEOs initiative.
Klaus

March 5th, 2007 at 4:11 pm

who needs this ?
What a stupid waste of time and effort.
Booooring video too.
guphex

March 7th, 2007 at 4:13 am

This is great. I love it! very good!
Steven

March 18th, 2007 at 12:10 am

I love this forum because people so often ask the questions that I would. With this post, however, I actually agree that I’m not as worried about the revenue. So many companies these days play what I call the “YouTube Lottery.” Everyone knows about the crazy money YouTube got, but not much is written (even on TechCrunch) about the 100s of companies that made it nowhere, They didn’t win the lottery the way that YouTube did.http://www.downloadsuite.org