Hi I’m Juan ,Creative Director and Co-founder of Anima Creativa ( I worked as Art Director in Disney channel Shows in Argentina) , Now we are a new media independent content developers , our network is formed by the most talent people in broadcast ,internet and mobile content ( we made videos/shows for Disney/Mtv Latam/Cartoon Network/National Geographic, etc). thinking to build a community for our creative studio/partners and clients we saw many networks solutions and I find Flux ,I started my network yesterday (animacreativa.flux.com ) and i think in the future my community can collaborate with Viacom or TV networks to open our talent in an open and clear social network space but. I read again the Term of use agreement and god send me this link tonight.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....o-the-mat/

now i can see that Flux is impossible for independent media professionals , is another way to have all the rights of our talent , but now without paying !!. broadcast companies always will be the Devil and Flux the irrevocable contract . I’m sorry but Flux will never have our free creative spirit and mind in your site because Flux isn’t a web 2.0 and less a social network attitude.

good bye Flux , good bye old world

Please close our account before I am exiled from my community

AC Team.

Advantages. Only site I know where a layman can create his own mini-Network or Forum

Disadvantages. Staff rude, can’t admit mistakes, blame you, Ning is not what it is advertised as.

My experience with Ning. I am a dyslexic person on disabilities whose hobby it is to coach young men in dating and relationships. I tried using Ning as a teaching aid. Ning staff are very bad at accepting criticism. They can’t admit their mistakes. Ning is very slow. Gina Bianchini said something is wrong with “me” if I think waiting 4 seconds for a page to load is slow. I am using Orkut, MySpace, Yahoo Groups, and those networks are a lot faster. Although Ning finally listened to me and made their site a little faster, it didn’t do me any good.

One of the features Ning is boasting is the ability to create your own profile questions. But what they do not tell you (at least they did not tell me) is that, the more questions you make, the slower your Network is going to be. (Right now I have to wait 20 seconds for a page to load on my Network.) After they told me this was the case it was too late. I reduced the number of questions, but the members’ profile answers are already stored in the system. They told me the information couldn’t be deleted and my Network will always be slow. Again instead of accepting responsibility they played the blame game with me. They told me I was the only one on Ning who made so many profile questions, and that I was odd. It is funny hearing this from people who allegedly want to give Network creators freedom to be individualistic. Not to mention that its rude. As a result I have lost months of design effort and time.

They say in an advertisement that you can create your own Social Network, but in reality it is more like your own forum or miniature network. The Groups feature of Ning Networks is very underdeveloped. For instance you can’t approve group posts. This one-fit-all approach is why all Ning networks look the same. I’m sick of all these sites luring you with false promises and providing no service of any value.

Also, I got a death threat and when I complained they banned me from Network Creators forum. Most of the Networks on Ning are “dead”, in part because Gina has a big head and will not accept advice on how to improve the site. They have been very rude and inhospitable to me.

It’s one thing to blast your competition in a tasteful way but this was a little (ok more than a little) distasteful.

Since she had to bring it up I took a look at 50 Cents page on both Ning and Flux and I have to say the Flux site looks better. Not only does it look better it ranks better in Google. I searched for “50 cent community’s page ” without the quotes and the Flux page was in the number one spot. The Ning page didn’t come up at all on the first page or the second page. 50 cent also has a link to the Flux page on his Ning page so I guess that speaks volumes

In addition I like the URL’s better on Flux because it’s not flux.yoursite.co_ It’s your web addy with -/Main.aspx?pbt_name=Community behind it which from what I understand is a better way of getting the search engines to like your site and it doesn’t look like you are tagged onto some other domain for your content.

Now I’ll have to have my legal team look into the claims of me giving up IP rights and if it’s true then Flux is a bad idea, but if it’s being mis characterized then I’m going to play around with Flux and see what happens.

I guess I can just thank Ning’s CEO for pointing me in the direction of Flux which I wouldn’t have given a second thought to until I saw her brutal review of their service.

Ok in all fairness I can’t say that everything is bad about Ning. They just announced Wordpress integration so that’s a really good thing!

I have never used ning or flux and dont plan to… but seems like ning is really scared!
They have ended up giving free publicity to flux…

If you’ve been considering adding social network elements to your blog or website you may have considered Ning’s social network platform, where many have built unique social networks, and/or Flux’s social distribution platform, which has begun offer…

Weak, wearied, in distress … mistake …. muddy … stubborn … lemon …

Looking at Gina’s post, looks like all of these apply.

Gina’s responsibility to her shareholders is to publicize Ning and differentiate it from its competitors in a crowded space. IMHO her post is a bang-on target.

Separately: The post speculating about Gina’s upcoming wedding being the motivation for this post is straying dangerously across the sexism line. Imagine if someone wrote something like that about a dude - you would think the person was an idiot. Same goes for writing it about a female executive.

The POINT? She should be working, not writing this crap.

If I were on her Board I’d take her to task (okay, fine, I’d ask her out, she’s really quite attractive.. then I’d take her to, er, dinner, dammit).

Here’s a tip, next time kindly decline. I’m sure Mike would mention that you had declined and your kudos would increase much with us readers.

#81 and #84 - yes, of course Apple snipes at Windows every chance it gets (and with good reason!)…but obviously Apple is the underdog there and needs to point out the “10-ton gorilla”s ‘issues’. For iPod and Zune, Apple is in the opposite position.

My point is that by sniping at Flux, Gina immediately says to the World “we are the underdog — help us!”…which I’m sure isn’t what she meant to say!

-Andrew

As the saying goes “Strong means weak.” This seems desperate.

Just read this on TC ( http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/ning-ceo-calls-flux-and-viacom-to-the-mat ). One of the founders (Gina) of Ning is outing some of the bait ‘n switch tactics of Viacom owned (major stakeholder) Flux.
She goes on abou…

That said, I do think they should have pared this down to the important stuff about the bait and switch on the marketing material vs/ T&C (marketing says you own data, T&C says they own data). That’s HUUUUGE.

That “public service announcement” (about the T&C being different from marketing materials) is so needed!!! Anyone who disagrees with that is a Viacom troll. That is completely obvious. There’s no two ways about that.

Pointing out something so potentially disastrous (for the USER!!) is uber important.

#75 (Matt) has a good point too…

I think Ning looks great, but I can’t figure out how the hell they’re ever going to generate enough revenue to turn a profit (let alone make enough money to justify their valuation). Their long-term prospects might be my biggest concern if I were shopping for a social networking platform.

P.S.
I’m sure there are many more like it out there, on many different topics!

Doesn’t Apple have an entire ad campaign built around dissecting every flaw of Windows? Apple doesn’t have to dissect the Zune, because in the music player market, Apple is the 10-ton gorilla. But Apple nips at Windows every chance it gets (e.g. Jobs’ comments about pricing during the Leopard announcement).

I don’t think it’s dumb at all to put forth a well-reasoned comparison between your own company and its competitors. Companies do this all the time. As long as Ning’s statements about Flux are accurate and to the point, I don’t have a problem with this. In fact, Ning has strongly convinced me to take a second look at their platform.