Hi All,
Next week we are going to talk about online social networks, and today I want to show you a useful “new” platform called Ning. It is the world’s largest online platform that allows people and organizations to create customized social networks. Ning development started in 2004 but it was released publicly only in October 2005. At the beginning, it was funded by its founders Bianchini and Andreessen with other angel investors. Only in 2007, Ning received funds from venture capital, raising almost 100 million in capital. In 2011 it reached 90000 customers worldwide and 100 million of registered users social profiles.
Ning allows everyone to create their own communities and social networks around specific users’ interests or needs choosing which visual design and features to embed. Users can insert photos, videos, chat, blogs, and communities, as they prefer. Ning could be integrated also with the most famous network, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google: for example users can share content from Ning network directly to their Twitter or Facebook accounts. Members can also share content from other sources like YouTube and Vimeo for videos, or MySpace and SoundCloud for music players. The service allows users to charge for membership in their social network. They can also use other services, like Google AdSense, to add display advertisement to their Ning Network. Members had full control on their networks and they could edit source code, which is written in PHP, adding or removing other features.
In 2009 Ning joined to OpenSocial, Google’s project that contains a set of common Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for web-based applications allowing users to edit their creation in an easier and faster way. In 2011 Ning rolled out Ning Design Studio that helped members in choosing between pre-made templates, varying in colours, layout and font, or they could use CSS to customize their own templates or to do other visual changes.
At the beginning, Ning was for free, but now there are three paid accounts: Mini, Plus and Pro. The plans are offered on the basis of the features that users want to embed in their networks and range in price, so members can choose which is the one that best fits for them.
If you would like to build your own social network, you can go to http://uk.ning.com for a 30 days free trial.
Claudio
References
