| Website | ning.com |
| Blog | blog.ning.com |
| Category | Web |
| Phone | (650) 289-0606 |
| ceo@ning.com | |
| Employees | 41 |
| Total | $104M |
| Series A, 1/07 Marc Andreessen | |
| Series B, 1/07 Marc Andreessen | |
| Series C, 7/07 Legg Mason | $44M |
| Series D, 4/08 Allen & Company | $60M |
Ning (which means “peace” in Chinese) currently provides by a wide margin the best platform for setting up fully functional and visually appealing social networks from scratch. While Ning attempts to provide essentially the same out-of-the-box service as GoingOn, Me.com, PeopleAggregator, and ONEsite, none of its competitors can yet match the professionalism of its product.
The company’s superior execution has so far earned it more than 185,000 hosted networks (although, browse Ning’s list of “popular” networks and one gets the strong sense that the vast majority of these networks were set up by tire kickers and promptly abandoned).
The standard Ning package allows affiliates to build at no cost an ad-supported network with all of the features that they offer. This entails a point-and-click setup process in which an affiliate chooses a theme, tweaks appearances, and loads features such as photos, videos, groups, and blogging. Within minutes, the affiliate has created an impressive, fully-featured (albeit rather cookie-cutter) network that is ready to accept its first batch of members, which can be invited by email or Ning ID.
For most affiliates, the ease in which you can set up a solid network will be the selling point. However, Ning also has offerings for more advanced affiliates that allow networks to partially break out of the standard Ning format. Affiliates can disable ads or run their own ads for $20 per month, and they can mask their networks’ URLs for only $5 per month. Furthermore, they have access to Ning’s comprehensive Developer Documentation and an API for when they desire advanced customization. Effectively, their API allows developers to take the standard Ning network and retool it, whereas KickApps encourages advanced customization by providing developers with a bare foundation on which to build.
While the Ning platform can be made almost entirely invisible by removing the top Ning toolbar and masking the URL, all networks hosted by Ning share the same user base. When a user joins your Ning network as a member, he or she obtains a Ning ID that works with all other Ning networks. On the one hand, this system facilitates the process by which users sign up for more than one network. On the other, it serves as a constant reminder that the network is actually hosted by a white label social networking platform. Many affiliates will not mind this system at all, but others who want to completely brand their community will consider this a detraction.
View a chart that we compiled in Summer 2007 that compares this company’s social networking product to others.
Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, gives a demonstration of Ning’s service to Robert Scoble
Gina Bianchini, gives a run down of Ning.com and its features
| Website | ning.com |
| Blog | blog.ning.com |
| Stage | Live |
| Launch Date | October 4, 2007 |
| Tags | white-label-social-networking |
