The Viacom-backed Flux social network, which launched just last September, is really taking off.
Flux is a partially distributed social network. Like Ning (and more recently KickApps), it’s a place for sites to easily create a new social network, or bolt a social network onto an existing site, and add users from other platform social networks with a single click. Ning has the benefit of a big head start and over $44 million in funding. Since launching way back in late 2005, 165,000+ social networks have been created on Ning.
The two companies are serious rivals. In late November we published a point-by-point comparison of Flux and Ning as seen by Ning CEO Gina Bianchini. Few punches were pulled.
Flux is only a few months old, but had the benefit of not only Viacom’s money but also their brands - at launch hundreds of Viacom properties launched Flux social networks, including their MTV brands. In late November they opened the platform and anyone could join and create a social network.
Today, Flux says, they have grown to over a million registered members and 2,000 self-service created social networks. They also also released a developer API to give users more flexibility in creating social networks.
Flux may have far fewer social networks than Ning at this point, but the heft of the Viacom properties is clearly giving it a traffic boost. Comscore says Flux now has 5.8 million monthly unique visitors, compared to just 2.1 million for Ning (update: it has been pointed out in the comments that Compete data tells a different story).
Update 2: Flux may be taking off, but not as much as we thought. The January spike in the comScore data was a little suspicious, so we asked comScore to double-check that it was right. Turns out it was an “artificial increase” due to traffic not requested by users. comScore is revising its numbers to filter out the bad data. We’ll let you know what those are as soon as we hear.
Impressive growth for flux… Ning’s busy design needs revamp!
Can’t Ning do something different with domain mapping. Having Ning in the URL is a subtraction for me.
I think it’s only a matter of time before facebook et. al. begin following this business approach to further grow it’s membership and perceived 15B value… it needs to do something and this seems like a logical step. Sure, it may dilute facebooks brand but it also gives it enormous potential that has yet been tapped.
Jon
http://buzvia.com - Share Influence
Interestingly, Alexa tells a very different story here, as does Compete.
Josh - good catch. updated the post.
http://siteanalytics.compete.c.....?metric=uv
Who knows how well any of these tracking systems support API-based access of the flux platform. The initial MTV launch used a lot of API-based access of the flux platform. Though that’s likely changing. Viacom is continuing to launch a lot of properties on Flux too, so it’s not going to slow down.
I’d generally trust comscore before i trust compete or alexa (to the extent that i trust any 3rd party analytics tool)
As a followup, many of the flux visitors cannot be viewed by comparing the flux.com domain. Many of their networks are on custom domains, like mtv.com, pcdmusic.com, etc. So ning looks good, as they require the ning.com domain, Flux doesn’t…
Speaking of compete data, this is funny stuff:
http://siteanalytics.compete.c.....?metric=uv
We’ve got five part time & two full time employees, and zero marketing budget…but, we’re not in the business of offering a “platform” for other people to create their own social network.
Still, though, it always fascinates me to see how a company with so much money, talent & resources to NOT be able to kick my start ups ass
Perhaps it isn’t just money & write ups on TechCrunch that enable sites to succeed?
If it is, though…I wonder why there aren’t more stories about sites like ours, plentyoffish, or fanpop on here.
Comscore and Compete provide US data sampling only, so to the extent that a company’s audience is limited to the US, it will be accurate; in this case I’d say it’s not very accurate. There is the domain issue as well for both flux and ning; since they provide domain masking options there’s no clear way to know what kind of traffic either is really doing. If Hitwise provided some metrics on each, that would be interesting.
@Jeremy: pull your head out of your butt; the fumes are clearly getting to you.
jeremy you’ve answered yourself: you don’t have a celebrity CEO.
btw Ning’s Gina wasn’t a celeb. afaik. Marc’a is/was… and so now is Gina…
so just get some twopointoh celeb join your board then watch others complain about you getting all the attn.
siteanalytics shows visitors only for flux.com
but the flux network is made of 2000 sites…so 6 millions visitors from comScore fits well
why keep using complete.com? they are not reliable.
The reason why Flux is “taking off” is because of the stupid Flux “f share” icon (aka “Post this” pop-up link) Arrington puts under each TechCrunch post and the popularity of TechCrunch. Specifically, Flux are probably getting traffic attribution for that stupid little icon each and everytime TC is loaded.
And all y’all click on it and wonder WTF it is - thus increasing Flux traffic. LOL. Far better “share this” tools are out there. They only made it to TechCrunch probably because of Heather “she’s probably connected to a friend at Flux” Harde. Los Angeles media connection, much?
8,9 and 10 all raise good points
@11, consider hiring a woman Arrington thinks is hot and he’ll cover you (well, her). I can’t say I blame him, though. I’d just note that t is interesting that Ning’s obnoxious valuation makes Flux the underdog here.
Despite your take on which analytics service is better it seems to me the numbers show Flux on a path to surpass Ning (even if they haven’t already). Both companies base their business on subdomains so I assume the Comscore numbers are being measured pretty accurately. Ning’s is a subdomain of Ning.com (which is quite low rent imo) and Flux uses a subdomain provided by the partner site. It’s the same thing but one looks better than the other to the user. I don’t think Flux has enough penetration of their “f share” icon/widget (at least I haven’t really seen them around too many places) to make the numbers unfairly skew in their favor. I think Jon’s earlier comment is right. We’re beginning to see the strategy of working with a network of brands and highly trafficked websites (vs Ning’s everyman communities) take shape. It almost feels like Facebook developing from the opposite direction. Even though they have a long, long way to go I’m impressed with the Flux thought process.
Ning allows for domain mapping (see my site)
Also, Ning properties tend to be NOT connected to larger, established properties/brands so I think it will take longer for their properties to gain traffic, even though the quality is higher.
Social Project has come a long way - Flux is so awesome with open-ended possibilites to expand.
Whoever is winning…it is great to see the competition and the innovation that brings into this space.
@ #2- you can name the domain whatever you want- but you have to own the domain name AND pay for Ning’s premium services.
I use Ning myself for my passion project: http://www.troopspace.net and it works well.(I am still working on the design- so be kind)
I pay approx. $52/month to “white label” my site. As I am not trying to make money off my users and don’t want ads right now to keep the site clean, this solution works for me.
Everytime I have emailed anyone at Ning- Gina Bianchini included- I have always received a very fast answer. In fact, I am due to meet with her sometime soon.
Is Ning perfect? No- but as with any good web property it is constantly being improved and the folks at Ning listen to their users. I can’t speak for Flux, but that is probably because Ning is keeping me happy and I have no reason to jump ship.
There are a lot of white label social network solutions out there- some inexpensive and some REALLY expensive- whatit always comes down to is service vs. What you are willing to pay. Foe me, Ning is a GREAT value
For my day job, I am involved in online media and everyone uses Comscore and the rest even though we all know they are full of it. Its kind of a joke- if Alexa says a site is getting high traffic, the people from that site scream it from the rooftops. When they say their site is bad, it’s always, “well, everyone knows you can’t trust any of those reporting sites”
Even with online advertising, it is hard to get reliable numbers because every analytical company out there (atlas, 24/7, Double click) always has different numbers than everyone else. So always take those statistics with a grain of salt
fyi, i wrote a lengthy post about this today - about the need for a real web comparison engine:
http://www.centernetworks.com/.....son-engine
and from reading mike’s update tonight, it looks like i was right. i kinda wish i wasn’t.
@ 21 Allen:
GREAT article and dead on right. You showed exactly what I encounter day to day- the sites in the lead all bellow their Alexa or Comcast Score, while those behind point out that no one can agree on the numbers. It’s a joke.
The freedom of flux is very important. You can keep it as simple or complicated as you want. Very important. I’ll be creating a flux network during this next week.