Ning Ending Free Service Won’t End Your Social Cloud

Ning is a popular social networking platform that is available through a software as a service (SaaS) model.  On April 15th, 2010 Ning announced that they will be phasing out their free service.   New Signature works with many of our clients to build social networks using SaaS platforms (including Ning) and open source software platforms Drupal and Elgg.  Today, Nick Judd drew on New Signature CEO Christopher Hertz’s expertise for his “Ning Ending Free Service Won’t End Your Social Cloud” post on techPresident.  In the post, Nick helps make sense of how Ning’s change will impact nonprofits and political organizations.  Below is an excerpt from the post:

Chris Hertz, a technology consultant whose firm, New Signature, has done work for the Center for American Progress, Center for New American Security and CREW, says Ning could have avoided a lot of the hang-wringing he’s seeing if the company just announced price points already.

“If you have a whole bunch of people who are relying on your product and you say, ‘hey, you’ve got to wait until May 4 to find out pricing information on these products,’ it puts people in an uncomfortable position,” Hertz said.

Until pricing information comes out, it would be unwise to switch from Ning, even if there are a lot of services out there looking to court restless current Ning clients, he added.

“Generally, I’ve been advising people to be in a holding pattern. We don’t know what the price points are, we don’t know what the features are.”

“A lot of people have made a big deal out of it,” he said, “but it’s possible that they come out in a few weeks and say, ‘well it’s going to be $20 a month for nonprofits.’”

Read Judd’s full post here.  Contact New Signature if you need help building a social network for your organization.