Today Ning, the platform that lets users build their own social networks, is launching a new feature called Ning Virtual Gifts, bringing a built-in virtual goods store to the site’s 1.6 million networks. Virtual gifts have become increasingly popular over the last few years, largely thanks to their popularity on Facebook, and I’m sure plenty of Ning’s Network Creators are eager to cash in on the trend.
Ning is letting Network Creators choose from a library of pre-made virtual gifts, but they’re also free to create their own. This means that the site’s Brooklyn Art Project network can offer gifts that are miniature versions of handdrawn artwork. It also means that the New Kids On The Block network can sell gifts of… the bandmembers’ faces (I do realize that I’m not the target demographic with those, and Britney Spears has seen quite a bit of success selling her face as a gift on Facebook).
Ning will be taking a hefty chunk of the revenue from each gift: after PayPal’s processing fees, half will go to Ning, and the other half will go to the network creator who sold the gift. To help spur interest in the new feature, Ning is giving everyone on a Ning network 100 credits, which is enough to buy one gift (each gift normally costs 75 credits which translates to $1.50).
just wanted to say how badly I think Ning sucks. What a VC money sucker with no upside
Umm, wouldn’t it just make more sense for Ning to partner with Paypal and help website owners sell things.
This is what I love about Ning- it’s so trendy. No trend will pass Ning silently in the night and get away with it.
I like Ning and have loved what some bands are doing with it now, but these virtual gifts are downright annoying!
of all the companies that you could cover, you decide to run yet another piece on ning.
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This is gonna be a huge network: http://anchorsteam.ning.com/
Join if you like steam beer!
bump
cute. LOL – Isn’t this the same type thing that destroyed Myspace? I remembered when I was on Myspace.. I would receive countless emails from people wanting me to join an application.. or send me a gift.. or ask me if I thought they were hot, etc etc etc – It got so damn annoying that I basically quit that site…
I actually have a Ning site.. I literally have not been on it in over a month (and it’s my own site) – That is how painful this Ning platform has become. It is a toy for little kids and hobbyists.. that’s it. No legit company in their right mind is going to give Ning the time of day – and I think that is exactly what Ning wants with their new strategy.
The Ning Apps was a total flop as well.. errr.. JOKE.
Who cares about ning?
NIng = waste of VC money. With 119M invested on Ning, they could have invested on at least 50 startups. It is more like a hobby site now, that went downhill faster than HI5 or Friendster.
AGREED. Ning is a waste of disk space. TC please quit writing about them.
hmmmm…
rm -rf /lameshit/ning_content
For Ning to think that these stupid Virtual Gifts (that NOBODY is going to pay for) is more important than Video Categories.. a decent Message Forum structure.. etc etc etc – blows my mind.
I would be 100% embarrassed to ask my users to pay for something this stupid. One of the lamest things I have seen in a while.
Russell, if i remember correctly you were among the strongest defenders of Ning on Get Satisfaction ! What turned you off ?
Ning is a big money pit. They’ll monetize using ads and virtual gifts (following on Facebook’s heals), but how much money will they be able to make??? If Facebook revenue per user is any indication, they need to find a better business model. Nobody clicks on ads inside FB. And who’s going to build Apps for Ning??? If I’m an app developer, FB presents the largest audience possible for my application. In my opinion, Ning = MySpace for 2010. The VCs better hope Marc and his team can buy their way into a new business model or the site is toast!
I totally disagree. Facebook ads can be great, because they’re so targeted. I had something I needed to advertise for to people at my university, with particular majors. I was able to target just those people, and the $100 I spent on advertising went very far — I got tons of clicks for little money spent.
Why are you negging on Ning? I like the Ning model. Ultimately everyone has their own social network. Ning helps them express their networks more explicitly and in a more custom manner than the likes of Facebook. It’s a place for ‘connectors’ to have a bit more control. Traffic is doing fine.
http://siteanal...e.com/ning.com/
Good move on the virtual goods front. I advise Viximo.com who enable sites to be able to offer virtual goods and they have some strong deals in the pipeline.
Virtual goods are a strange egg. Ultimately, when giving a gift its the sentiment that is worth paying for. A rose, a cartoon, a virtual piece of art. The more custom and personal they are, the more sentiment they inspire. Asia has led the way with the mass adoption of virtual gifting. Specifically on Cyworld in South Korea and QQ.com in China.
Cyworld tried launching in the USA and opened an office in San Francisco, but failed. Facebook, SecondLife and Hotornot are some of the pioneers in the USA.
(Full Disclosure: Viximo and Hotornot are clients of Courtland Brooks)
So far it has been cool to see how a small group of Network Creators have used this on their Ning Networks, from rewards and recognition to NKOTB faces.
I bet Donnie is #1.
I agree. A waste of VC money. Especially with their holier than thou elimination of all “questionable” content. When the big players like Google and Yahoo don’t care about “what kind” of content they have why should some little runt company. Enforcing YOUR morality on others is pretty uncool.
As somebody who has my personal web site on Ning, I agree with the others. Ning is easy to create a social network site initially but ultimately if you’re going to really start customizing your site with features, you’ll end up migrating to other technologies.
I actually think that the virtual gifts store is a pretty good idea. Alongside my original products from my scripts4ning days, it should work well. For instance, my ‘points – ranks – and awards’ script accurately represents a members site activity. It is a realtime readout of how much they give to my network. The giftstore is the community giving back to them; even if only symbolically.
There needs to be some tweaks done before I turn the giftstore on and present it to my 5,000 members. But all in all, I do believe this will be a good thing. It’s all dependent on how creatively the NC brands it. The way the NC represents their giftstore could be the difference between completely offending the users, not upsetting the status quo at all, or positively spurring member activity.
I’m all for it. But I need to remove the current categories. Create my own categories. Create my own pricing and create arbitrary quantities. After that, I think Ning has a hit.
Ning is not a total waste of money IMHO; it’s great for testing the feasibility of your planned network. If it doesn’t work you let it rot, if it works, you migrate it to your own servers and start really building on it. Not smart of Ning but nice for us.
NING has an ongoing problem with customer satisfaction, and sadly they just made things a lot worse by violating trust with its paying customers.
Many pay money to customize their network and remove most of the NING branding from their sites, use their own URLs and the like. Some sites are very serious and professional sites.
NING launched this feature live on all sites – even sites that are paid for sites. Anyone visiting one of these sites would be greeted with a silly banner across the top with free credits.
The problem isn’t the cost or the format – it is that they violated their customers networks with something like this.
I took down a Ning network after learning first hand how horrible their customer service is. Their servers constantly change code among other problems like sending member messages.
Waste of productive time IMO.
Many thanks for the censorship, I guess the truth hurts!
I noticed theres another company coming into the virtual gift market also – boonspace – google it