Ning.com provides a platform for people to set up their own Internet communities, with forums, social networking profiles, chat and blogs. It has announced this week that it will ditch its free accounts and have only premium options. Currently it is free to set up a social network and there are many good sites available.
Like Geocities before it, Ning has found it impossible to monetize free websites. Ning includes one of its own Google Adsense skyscrapers on every page, however this is positioned in a weak spot on the right hand side, the same place where Geocities placed their adverts. It is likely that an advert placed in a hotspot would perform much better and could pay for the service.
Ning.com has managed to upset a lot of its users in this shake up also. Rather than contacting its users direct with the news, most have found out through tech news blogs such as Techcrunch.com.
Unfortunately there are job losses at Ning.com with this change in policy too. Here is the announcement to its staff regarding the changes, that made it on to Techcrunch.com:
“We will phase out our free service. Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning. We will judge ourselves by our ability to enable and power Premium Ning Networks at huge scale. And all of our product development capability will be devoted to making paying Network Creators extremely happy.
As a consequence of this change, I have also made the very tough decision to reduce the size of our team from 167 people to 98 people. As hard as this is to do, I am confident that this is the right decision for our company, our business, and our customers. Marc and I will work diligently with everyone affected by this to help them find great opportunities at other companies.
I’ve never seen a more talented and devoted team, and it has been my privilege to get to know and work with each and every one of you over the last 18 months.” Ning.com
So, another free Internet service bites the dust. What will be next? WordPress.com, Blogspot.com?
