Ning to Do Away With Free Services

Change is inevitable, especially when it comes to online social networks. The latest platform to undergo some major changes? Ning. The growing social media site just announced that it’s discontinuing its free services – and laying off close to half of its staff.

Ning has been growing in popularity over the past year, but obviously this wasn’t enough to make the platform profitable – hence the new COO’s decision to drastically cut staff and change the overall business model.

Networks currently using the free services will be able to upgrade to paid programs, or migrate their networks elsewhere. Pay to play may not be a convenient option for many of the small organizations currently utilizing Ning.

According to Tech Crunch, the paid programs do start at relatively small dollar amounts, including the following: “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 you’re running on Ning ($25 a month).”

Hopefully this transition won’t crush the budding networks using the platform, and they’ll be able to transition into the paid models – or find better options elsewhere. This is just another example of the constant changes happening in the social media world. As an organization, the lesson learned is to never put all your social media eggs in one basket, but instead, stay on top of new trends and be on the lookout for additional ways to promote your brand and engage with consumers.

Similar Posts

• Search: It’s Not Just About Google Anymore
• Facebook to Eliminate Boxes, Narrow Size of Custom Tabs
• Why Businesses Should Get Excited About Facebook Places
• Say Hello to “The Social Network”
• 40 Terrific Facebook Pages

Comments

About Author