Timberline Interactive

Ning is pulling the plug from the little social network I built. And they're doing the same for literally millions of other Ning sites whose owners didn't step up to the plate to pay for the previously free service.

I used to sing the praises of the Ning platform, but I don't like the way they've handled the transition. Granted, they need to make money, and a modest fee for a strong social software platform like Ning is perfectly fair. But I'm turned off by Ning's new tone. First it was the glib PR-speak of the "exciting new changes" they announced when they unilaterally started charging for the service (see my post "Ning Is No Longer Free").

Now, the dire email with the subject line "Your Ning Network Is Being Shut Down" sounds more like a faceless and beaurocratic electric company than a cool and innovative social media startup:

Unless you select a plan, we'll shut down all access to this Ning Network on Monday, September 13. Right now neither you nor your admins are able to sign in to this network, but your members still can. Before we take the step of interrupting the experience of your members, we wanted to give you one last chance to keep your network.

As the Network Creator, you still have these Last 3 Options:

1. Select a plan
Prices start at only $2.95 per month.

2. Archive my content
You can still use the Ning Archiver App to download all of your photos, videos, etc.

3. Shut down my network
We hope you'll want to stick with us as we roll out new features, but if you don't want your members to access your network, we recommend taking it offline completely.

I don't mean to be a whiner. Surely the move will result in ambitious, higher quality Ning sites remaining, while the inactive and spam-driven ones will be gone in one fell swoop. (My own site was inactive). And Ning has thrown a bone to education and health-related sites, which they say have been subsidized by corporate partners and will remain free.

While the move is doubtlessly good for Ning's pocketbook, I'm betting its web footprint will shrink overnight. It has been a long time since we've witnessed millions of web pages vanish in a flash, and it's going to be interesting to see how the move impacts Ning's traffic and Page Rank. Here's the current Ning benchmark which we'll revisit on September 13 and thereafter:

• Google Toolbar reports 19.3 million Ning pages indexed
• Ning's homepage Page Rank is 8
• Toolbar backlinks are 11,700
• Alexa traffic rank is 175

Interestingly, Alexa's measure of Ning's "reach" has been sliding for six months, corresponding with the price announcement.

I should also note, that bit asking site owners to manually shut down their networks suggests that if you do not, Ning may intend to keep your web pages alive, but without admin access. That would continue to serve up spider food and AdSense revenue for inactive networks -- tempting, perhaps, but I rather doubt they will do that. I can't wait to see!

While Timberline's primary business is building ecommerce websites and helping their owners market them, we do find ourselves designing blogs and other side-projects for our clients from time to time.

Blogs as a phenomenon were certainly overhyped a few years back. Douglas Quenqua recently wrote in the New York Times that according to a 2008 survey only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the Times tracks had been updated in the past 120 days -- with "95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned." I sounded a similar note in my Web 2.0 book.

The fact is, very few people or companies are doing things interesting enough to justify frequent posting -- or have the writing skills, persistence and work ethic to pull it off. While we strive to keep our own Timberline blog off the DOA list, it ain't easy!

That said, we still encourage anyone with a passion for their topic, with a story to tell and an enthusiastic audience of customers, members or other "community", to go for it. Blogs are still a terrific, low-cost, and high-speed way to publish online, and to elicit comments and other feedback.

We've lately been pushing Ning as a great blog platform with a constellation of other built-in social-media features: Members who can maintain their own profiles and establish friendships with one another; discussion forums; video and photo sharing; an events calendar.

The Ning platform is the brainchild of Marc Andreesen, who in the early days of the Web, created the Netscape browser.

All of Ning's social features combine to create more dynamic sites less likely to be DOA -- because your community helps generate content. Of course, a healthy community requires care and feeding, cajoling and cheerleading. But the network effect is a powerful tailwind once you get it established.

One plus: Most niche companies already do a great job of stimulating a sense of community among their customers. And if the niche is tightly defined, a small group -- say a couple dozen members -- can still feel very vibrant and energizing.

Check out some of our clients' Ning sites and you'll be impressed by how much you can do:

• Ann Clark Cookie Cutters "Make More Cookies" blog
• Where Marketers Meet B2B site focused on international direct marketing
• Ray Allen - the online community devoted to Police & Military Dogs

We still appreciate Wordpress, Movable Type and Typepad as excellent blogging platforms, and we use the installed product .NET blogengine for this blog. But with Ning, for about the same price, you get all the basic blogging features offered by the other guys, plus all the extra social-media goodies. Check it out -- and email us at sales@tli2.com if you want help designing and launching your Ning site!