Ning has decided to cancel their free accounts: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/15/nings-bubble-bursts-no-more-free-networks-cuts-40-of-staff/
"Ning has just announced that it is killing off its free product, forcing existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere. While the email talks about Free versus Premium paid networks, Ning actually has a variety of different premium upgrades. Currently, Nings premium options include support (which has a $10/month and $100/month options for different service levels); Custom domains ($5 a month); Extra storage and bandwidth ($10 a month); Ad removal ($25 a month) and the ability to hide any trace that youre running on Ning ($25 a month)." We had some long discussions several years ago when videobloggers started using Ning to make communities to complement their videoblog. (example http://mix.epicfu.com/ which is a nicely designed Ning site). We were asking if it was smart to invest so much time archiving and building a community on a site you dont own. When we did the http://semanal.org/ project in 2008...I know we debated between using Ning or hack Wordpress for this group project. Glad we decided to hack. I think useful services are smart to charge. I know I pay a yearly fee to Flickr.com because I love their service. Blip.tv would be another service that seems worth a fee. But I feel it's really shady when services start free...suck you in...then either force you to pay or dump you. Jay -- http://ryanishungry.com http://twitter.com/jaydedman 917 371 6790 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: videoblogging-dig...@yahoogroups.com videoblogging-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: videoblogging-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/