Oh, I can feel a rant coming on. I really can’t even believe this site exists. I commented in an earlier post that I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to write about it. You know those things you read that immediately cause you to say, “AHSA*(&(@(&@ Wahhhhhhhhhh?” Or otherwise burst into loud noises of total shock? The ones where it’s so absurd you gotta find somebody pronto to spread the word just b/c you know it’s bankable their jaw will drop to the ground in giggly disbelief? UNREAL! Well, that happened in spades when Ning raised $40 plus mill from Legg Mason. Made me wonder is that the money Legg pegged to either throw in the ocean, burn, or invest in Ning? I mean really they’re equivalent from the eyes of a value shop like Da Mason. When the shock of that wore off about a month, I went back to see Ning. What’s new? Their major backer always blogs and gets cited around, so I read about it. More about politics or some general tech trend than Ning itself. Goes to show investing happens a lot based on how much spin can be generated.
Now Ning starts trumpeting “hey, we’ve got 100,000 social networks on our site!” Are you KIDDING me? We’re not 5 years old or born yesterday. Unless of course each network gets a WHOPPING visitor or two PER MONTH as per this quantcast graph. It’s not just Ning’s fault though. Tons of start-ups do that. Why throw out so much garbage? It’s as blatantly misleading and self-serving as a post by “stockdude1818” or some random hype machine stock picker on Yahoo Finance message boards. C’mon. I mean, when this gets written, does the company actually believe it’s relevant and representative, or just that other people will think it, or what?
Ning.com:
Legg, drop your $40 mill blank check money off to Bebo, Slide, Hi5, Rockyou, Flixster, Tagged or iLike WAY WAY WAY before you ever go drop it in Ning. The site’s shown little to no willingness to evolve. It’s in the process of getting destroyed by all the platforms that will inevitably emerge from the aforementioned megaplayers of social sites. (Facebook is the obvious example, and they’re the real player, but you gotta include the above guys too b/c they’re all legit too). Why oh why would you ever put any time or effort at all to develop on NING? It’s like saying here’s a ranch in the middle of no where with the nearest well 100 miles away and a population density of 0.1 people per square mile and expecting big business to move in. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. You gotta provide some business opportunity here, folks. Throwing up a town general store and calling it support plus throwing up dirt roads and calling it “infrastructure” isn’t fooling people used to running water and pavement. (Ok, I’m extending this absurd comparison too much, but I like doing that, so I’ll keep trying, even if it falls flat).
Not only is Ning irrelevant b/c it has no users, it’s destroying hope of overcoming that because each social network requires it’s own log-in. It’s as if it’s designed to make it as hard as possible for Ning to be relevant in any lasting regard.
Sheesh. So this post is turning into a rant. I apologize, it’s nothing against Ning as a company, I’m just expressing my real opinion about their prospects. Honesty is the best policy right? Let me know what you think. I’m trying to be as candid as possible. I find too many bloggers think brevity works, but it actually cuts out the heart and personality of the post, and in the process throws the baby out with the bath water. How can you really know what someone thinks unless they go beyond describing things in general terms and instead offer up more expressive, colorful terms? I find a lot of blogs really boring b/c for many reasons they get reduced to the lowest common denominator of one’s opinion. Now one could argue this blog is not so great itself in its lack of structure and sacrificing numbers for expression, but hey, I gotta counterbalance all the other blogs out there so it takes some work. J
There are tons of reasons Ning’s not gonna make it. If it wasn’t for the above mentioned social networks building substantial businesses on social networks, Ning prob wouldn’t be talked about by anybody. Unless they change up dramatically, Ning simply won’t be around in a few years. Sadly. But I’m holding out hope they’ll change it up and rather than try to do everything at once (which is kind of what that one Google/SixApart guy sounded like recently in his indecipherable paper on open ID/platforms) at least do one thing really well. Start with that. Maybe? Who knows. Sheesh.
