Ning
Encyclopedia
Ning is an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks, launched in October 2005. Ning offers customers the ability to create a community website with a customized appearance and feel, feature sets such as photos, videos, forums and blogs, and the service layers in support for “Like
”, integration with Facebook
, Twitter
, Google
and Yahoo!
. Ning, Inc. is owned by Glam Media
and, the operating company, has its headquarters in Palo Alto, California
.
The service allows customers to charge for membership directly within their Ning Network. Customers can also monetize by using services provided through partnerships established by Ning, and adding display advertisements, such as Google
AdSense
, to their Ning Network.
There are over 90,000 (as of June 2011) social websites, known as Ning Networks, running on the Ning Platform. Ning offers 3 plans to its customers: Mini, Plus and Pro. The plans are offered with varying feature offerings and range in price so that customers can choose a plan that best fits the goal for their community. Once a plan is chosen, a customer can change it to another plan at any time. As of June 2011, Ning has 65 million monthly unique visitors globally on its platform.
Ning was co-founded by Marc Andreessen
and Gina Bianchini
. Ning is Andreessen's third company (after Netscape
and Opsware
).
On September 21, 2011, the company announced its merger with Glam Media.
for "peace" , as explained by Gina Bianchini on the company blog. Ning started development in October 2004 and launched its platform publicly in October 2005. Ning was initially funded internally by Bianchini, Andreessen and angel investors. In July 2007, Ning raised US$
44 million in venture capital
, led by Legg Mason
. In March 2008, the company also announced it had raised an additional US$60 million in capital, led by an undisclosed set of investors. In its most recent round of funding in July 2009, the company raised US$15 million in capital, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
.
On April 15, 2010, CEO Jason Rosenthal announced changes at Ning. The free service would be suspended and of the current 167 employees, only 98 would remain. Current users of the free service had the option to either upgrade to a paid account or transition their content from Ning.
Ning is currently located in downtown Palo Alto, California
and its headquarters are in Facebook
's old office space.
for a particular topic or need, catering to specific membership bases or community needs. People joining a Ning Network have their own profile pages within the community.
A Ning community can integrate with online services like Facebook
, Twitter
and Google
. For instance, people can join a Ning Network using their Facebook or Twitter account, and share content from a Ning Network directly to their Twitter
or Facebook
accounts. Members can embed content directly from these services to a Ning Network, as well as other services and media content, like Youtube
and Vimeo
videos, or music players from MySpace
or SoundCloud
.
At its launch, Ning was a free-form platform for the development and hosting of open-source "social applications." The source code for Ning applications was available to users, and the service made it easy for anyone to fork
a Ning application, modify its PHP code and run it as their own. Applications included photo albums, blogging software, and many for sharing business reviews. In late September 2006, Ning narrowed its focus to offering a group website, a photos website, and a videos website for people to copy and use for any purpose. These three templates were later superseded by a single customizable application aimed at enabling anyone to easily create their own social network. However, Ning does allow developers to have some source level control of their social networks, enabling them to change features and underlying logic.
Feature modification was temporarily disabled on October 21, 2008. The company will replace full source control with the ability to bring in new features or change the logic of existing features via OpenSocial
and a set of new APIs relaunched in early 2009.
Ning formerly had both free and paid options; it switched to three levels of paid service in April 2010. Each pay level allows for different degrees of features, viral tools, customization, and customer support.
The social networks running on Ning's service are programmed with PHP
and the platform itself is built in Java
.
In November 2008, Ning announced a partnership with Scripts4Ning, integrating the developer's products directly into Ning and offering them for free.
Ning network administrators can select from options that govern various levels of viewability, privacy and membership.
Ning added an iPhone
interface in March 2009, then made networks more compatible with mobile phones in August 2009. In October 2010, Ning launched a iOS application (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) for network administrators to use to manage their social networks.
In February 2011, Ning introduced a new way for customers to customize and change the appearance of their Ning Networks by launching the Ning Design Studio. The feature allows customers to choose from pre-made templates, varying in color, font, background and foreground images, and layout design. Customers can fine-tune and make changes to the templates, or use CSS
to make custom visual changes on their community. The Design Studio also made it possible for customers to change the column layout and widths, giving new options beyond the default 3-column layout on Ning Networks before the Design Studio.
and Weezer
, The Twilight Saga , Tony Hawk
's Shred or Die , the Diabetes Hands Foundation
's TuDiabetes , the Brooklyn Art Project and T20.com - Home of Global Cricket
.
.
takedown notices for copyright infringing material.
On May 4, 2010, Ning Network sent an official email to all members:
Email notifications to ning network customers proclaimed that free .ning networks would expire
totally at midnight UTC−08:00 on Friday August 20, unless the customer decided to choose a paid plan.
Facebook features
Facebook is a social networking website, founded in 2004. This is a list of features that can be found on the Facebook website, as well as technology features on the website.-Chat:...
”, integration with Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
. Ning, Inc. is owned by Glam Media
Glam Media
Glam Media, Inc. is a privately held vertical media company with more than lifestyle websites and blogs. Glam Media is best known for Glam.com, a website targeted at women...
and, the operating company, has its headquarters in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
.
The service allows customers to charge for membership directly within their Ning Network. Customers can also monetize by using services provided through partnerships established by Ning, and adding display advertisements, such as Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
AdSense
AdSense
Google AdSense which is a program run by Google Inc. allows publishers in the Google Network of content sites to automatically serve text, image, video, and rich media adverts that are targeted to site content and audience. These adverts are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google, and they...
, to their Ning Network.
There are over 90,000 (as of June 2011) social websites, known as Ning Networks, running on the Ning Platform. Ning offers 3 plans to its customers: Mini, Plus and Pro. The plans are offered with varying feature offerings and range in price so that customers can choose a plan that best fits the goal for their community. Once a plan is chosen, a customer can change it to another plan at any time. As of June 2011, Ning has 65 million monthly unique visitors globally on its platform.
Ning was co-founded by Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. He founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard...
and Gina Bianchini
Gina Bianchini
Gina Bianchini was CEO of Ning, which she co-founded with Marc Andreessen. Since leaving Ning in March 2010, she has been an executive in residence at the Andreesen Horowitz venture firm....
. Ning is Andreessen's third company (after Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
and Opsware
Opsware
Opsware, Inc. was a software company based in Sunnyvale, California that offered products for server and network device provisioning, configuration, and management targeted toward enterprise customers...
).
On September 21, 2011, the company announced its merger with Glam Media.
History
The word "Ning" is ChineseStandard Mandarin
Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
for "peace" , as explained by Gina Bianchini on the company blog. Ning started development in October 2004 and launched its platform publicly in October 2005. Ning was initially funded internally by Bianchini, Andreessen and angel investors. In July 2007, Ning raised US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
44 million in venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
, led by Legg Mason
Legg Mason
Legg Mason, Inc. is an American-based global investment management firm with a focus on asset management. The company’s business is divided in two divisions: Americas and International...
. In March 2008, the company also announced it had raised an additional US$60 million in capital, led by an undisclosed set of investors. In its most recent round of funding in July 2009, the company raised US$15 million in capital, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm focusing on early stage investments in IT companies.The firm is based in Menlo Park, California and has raised approximately $2 billion of investor capital since inception across eight venture funds....
.
On April 15, 2010, CEO Jason Rosenthal announced changes at Ning. The free service would be suspended and of the current 167 employees, only 98 would remain. Current users of the free service had the option to either upgrade to a paid account or transition their content from Ning.
Ning is currently located in downtown Palo Alto, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and its headquarters are in Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
's old office space.
Features
Ning appeals to people who want to create their own communities and social networks around specific interests with their own visual design, choice of features and member data. The central feature of Ning is that anyone can create their own social networkSocial network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
for a particular topic or need, catering to specific membership bases or community needs. People joining a Ning Network have their own profile pages within the community.
A Ning community can integrate with online services like Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
and Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
. For instance, people can join a Ning Network using their Facebook or Twitter account, and share content from a Ning Network directly to their Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
or Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
accounts. Members can embed content directly from these services to a Ning Network, as well as other services and media content, like Youtube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and Vimeo
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. It was founded by Zach Klein and Jake Lodwick in November 2004...
videos, or music players from MySpace
Myspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
or SoundCloud
SoundCloud
SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform which allows collaboration, promotion and distribution of audio recordings.-History:SoundCloud was originally started in Stockholm, Sweden, but was established in Berlin, Germany in August, 2007 by sound designer Alex Ljung and artist Eric Wahlforss...
.
At its launch, Ning was a free-form platform for the development and hosting of open-source "social applications." The source code for Ning applications was available to users, and the service made it easy for anyone to fork
Fork (software development)
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...
a Ning application, modify its PHP code and run it as their own. Applications included photo albums, blogging software, and many for sharing business reviews. In late September 2006, Ning narrowed its focus to offering a group website, a photos website, and a videos website for people to copy and use for any purpose. These three templates were later superseded by a single customizable application aimed at enabling anyone to easily create their own social network. However, Ning does allow developers to have some source level control of their social networks, enabling them to change features and underlying logic.
Feature modification was temporarily disabled on October 21, 2008. The company will replace full source control with the ability to bring in new features or change the logic of existing features via OpenSocial
OpenSocial
OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces for web-based social network applications, developed by Google along with MySpace and a number of other social networks.It was released November 1, 2007....
and a set of new APIs relaunched in early 2009.
Ning formerly had both free and paid options; it switched to three levels of paid service in April 2010. Each pay level allows for different degrees of features, viral tools, customization, and customer support.
The social networks running on Ning's service are programmed with PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
and the platform itself is built in Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
.
In November 2008, Ning announced a partnership with Scripts4Ning, integrating the developer's products directly into Ning and offering them for free.
Ning network administrators can select from options that govern various levels of viewability, privacy and membership.
Ning added an iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
interface in March 2009, then made networks more compatible with mobile phones in August 2009. In October 2010, Ning launched a iOS application (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) for network administrators to use to manage their social networks.
In February 2011, Ning introduced a new way for customers to customize and change the appearance of their Ning Networks by launching the Ning Design Studio. The feature allows customers to choose from pre-made templates, varying in color, font, background and foreground images, and layout design. Customers can fine-tune and make changes to the templates, or use CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
to make custom visual changes on their community. The Design Studio also made it possible for customers to change the column layout and widths, giving new options beyond the default 3-column layout on Ning Networks before the Design Studio.
Community
Ning has 90,000 customers with social websites on the Ning Platform. A range of different types of communities, organizations, and businesses use Ning as their website. Some examples include sports teams Manchester United or bands Linkin ParkLinkin Park
Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. Formed in 1996, the band rose to international fame with their debut album, Hybrid Theory, which was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005 and multi-platinum in several other countries...
and Weezer
Weezer
Weezer is an American alternative rock band. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo , Patrick Wilson , Brian Bell , and Scott Shriner . The band has changed lineups three times since its formation in 1992...
, The Twilight Saga , Tony Hawk
Tony Hawk
Anthony Frank "Tony" Hawk , nicknamed "The Birdman" is an American retired professional skateboarder and actor. Hawk gained significant fame for completing the first 900 as well as his licensed video game titles distributed by Activision...
's Shred or Die , the Diabetes Hands Foundation
Diabetes Hands Foundation
The Diabetes Hands Foundation , founded in 2008, is a Berkeley, CA-based 501 non-profit organization that runs diabetes-centric online communities, serving people affected by diabetes either personally or through others. DHF also promotes diabetes awareness. It has two social networks that reach...
's TuDiabetes , the Brooklyn Art Project and T20.com - Home of Global Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
.
Controversies
Banning of third-party provider
In August 2008, Ning removed Widget Laboratory (the largest third party provider of plugin enhancements to Ning at the time) from Ning, preventing use of any of their tools across Ning networks. This dispute was hotly debated in response to an article in TechCrunchTechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
.
Removal of networks with pornography
In December 2008, Ning announced that it would no longer host networks that featured pornography and similar content. Network owners were given just over a month to move their pornographic content to another provider. The reasons cited for removing pornographic networks from the platform were that they did not cover the costs of providing them and that they created a disproportionate amount of DMCADigital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
takedown notices for copyright infringing material.
Removal of search function
In November 2009, the search feature of Ning was removed; this change significantly limited the ability to find existing Ning networks. The search function was restored on March 29, 2010.Removal of free networks
Many web services were proclaiming that Ning was closing down all free networks, and several were actively pursuing these creators. When Creators looked for confirmation on the Creators Network, there was little to no information, canned responses to their questions, and promises of more information in two weeks. Several Ning Employees were also gone with this "notice", although it's unclear whether that is due to layoffs or choice. Creators never received a formal notice, although Mr. Rosenthal did eventually post a re-statement of the original post more than 24 hours after the fact.On May 4, 2010, Ning Network sent an official email to all members:
Email notifications to ning network customers proclaimed that free .ning networks would expire
totally at midnight UTC−08:00 on Friday August 20, unless the customer decided to choose a paid plan.
See also
- BingBingBing is a web search engine from Microsoft.Bing may also refer to:* An onomatopœia of a bell sound* Bing cherry, a variety of cherry* Bing , Chinese flatbread* Bing , a German company that manufactured toys and kitchen utensils...
- BuddyPressBuddyPressBuddyPress is an open source social networking software package owned by Automattic since 2008. It is a plugin that can be installed on WordPress to transform it into a social network platform...
- Google GroupsGoogle GroupsGoogle Groups is a service from Google Inc. that supports discussion groups, including many Usenet newsgroups, based on common interests. The service was started in 1995 as Deja News, and was transitioned to Google Groups after a February 2001 buyout....
- SocialGOSocialGOSocialGO is a British company producing a social network builder that allows users to build an online community for a group, business or interest. Founded in June 2007, SocialGO was co-founded by Alex Halliday, Steve Hardman, and Dominic Wheatley...
- Yahoo! GroupsYahoo! GroupsYahoo! Groups is one of the world’s largest collections of online discussion boards. The term Groups refers to Internet communication which is a hybrid between an electronic mailing list and a threaded Internet forum, in other words, Group messages can be read and posted by e-mail or on the Group's...
External links
- Ning's Official Blog on Social Networking Sites
- The Ning Help Center
- Ning Creators This is where Creators get together to share advice and tips about growing their Ning Networks.
- Interview with Gina Bianchini co-founder of Ning, Intruders tv Video
- Audio interview with Marc Andreessen on Ning, social networking, and education (July 2007)
- Audio interview with Gina Bianchini on Ning (April 2007)
- Interview with Gina Bianchini, Ning CEO Bianchini describes "viral expansion loops" and how to create a successful social network (May 2008)
- "The Benefits of a Network" article by The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...