Ning

You may be referring to "'Ning!", an informal greeting on the imageboard B3ta, a contraction of the phrase, "Good evening."

	“	For the love of God and all that is holy, I hope to hell you don't have anything hosted, shown, or written down on Ning, those fuckers are gonna steal the internet blind.	„
	—Ex-Ning addict, Peter Benson...who got ripped off.

Close enough to explain it.

Charles Ponzi...inventor of the pyramid scheme.

Hey! I have a slick idea!

The ultimate fate of Ning network developers. Yup, Ning also harvested their organs

In case you don’t have enough stalkers, drama, and flame wars in your social networking life, in case you can't stand not being connected 24/7 to your faceless internet friends who don’t really give a shit if you have just finished mowing the lawn, and in case you haven’t heard of it, Ning would like you to join up and belong somewhere safe, happy, and peaceful on the internet so that they can fleece you of your content. Of course, any site that rips off all the other social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Dreamwidth, MySpace, and Blogspot, shouldn't be trusted to begin with and you are probably going to attract the same crop of retarded teens, unstable housewives, and 20-something assholes looking for porn that populate those sites. Ning offers you just one more place for you to enjoy the fail that is Web 2.0, but it offers it with a twist: It is a 500 million dollar Pyramid Scheme.

History

Gina Bianchini, a bored housewife and cougar on the prowl.

Marc Andreessen, the guy to blame for Netscape Navigator...and now Ning.

Other "investors."

The company behind Ning (ironically, a big fucking 擰) likes to say that it was “developed” in 2004 and this would be quite true if the word “developed” meant the phrase “ripped off from other social networking sites.” The official public launch of the site, backed by hidden, secret investment firms, occurred in October of 2005.

Founders

	“	Employees at Ning are neither fat, nor lazy. Remember the browser? You know, that thing you’re using to trash Ning? Andreesen invented it. He’s a smart guy, and the 60M round of funding is proof of this. He anticipated the current economic climate and the trouble companies are having trying to raise funding. And in a move of brilliance he raised enough money to (hopefully) see Ning through the bad times.	„
	—Yes, but only organized crime would invest in something as stupid as a social networking site...

• Marc Andreessen – the software engineer known best for his Netscape Browser and it’s links to AOL.

• Gina Bianchini – a bored house-wife and hottie who was letting her M.B.A. sit around, gathering dust. She figured she had better do something about it.

• Several other investors who remain nameless. But with the amount of money being laundered, one can only guess.
  
  

Gina describes what Ning is for everybody

About

FEAR THE VAGINA!!!

I should be cleaning, but I am using Ning!

	“	Ning empowers people to create and discover new social experiences for the most important people and interests in their lives.	„
	—This is of course true, if the most important person in your life is some anonymous 17 year old kid who hates your artwork.

Ning was started with a simple premise: when people have the freedom to create a new social experience online, they are going to get ripped apart, flamed, trolled, and raeped by the internet hate machine. The site touts its flexibility, stating that it is uniquely customizable to all of your interests and friends with almost no effort or cost. This isn’t true if your interests are porn, and it isn’t true if you want to join a Ning community that only allows paid subscriptions…but hey, it sounded good on the Ning “About” page, so the company keeps it there.

Your Own Social Network For Anything

Ning boasts a lot of kewl stuff to use!

In the past, women marched for equal rights. Now, they go home and use Ning to bitch about their shitty husbands.

Come to my Ning page and I can show you how to breed horses...and how to eat twinkies!

disenhearNING...ZING!

As of april 2009, there were over a million social networks on Ning. That’s a lot of neurotic housewives blogging about FEMALE EMPOWERMENT being tossed around along with cheap ass companies trying to hawk their wares without shelling out a couple hundred bucks for a dot com website.

Features

Despite the fact that Ning is filled with several thousand sites all detailing the same boring, pedestrian topics, the networking site has a multitude of widgets and scripts you can run on your page so that you really look like a complete and total toolbox, rather than a boring and pedestrian one.

Here are some of their widgets:

• A weather script so that you don’t have to look out your windows.

• An online file system where you can store porn…no, you can't store porn.

• An online jukebox where you can stream your pirated mp3 files…but everybody thinks you like crappy music anyways, so nobody will listen.

• Bookmark scripts so that all of your stalkers on all of your other social networking sites can emigrate to Ning as well.

• BuddyPoke…which despite the fact that it sounds dirty and fun, is really cute and sickening.

• MyMiniLife where you can show everybody how cool your parent’s house is.

• STATUS! A script that will allow you to tell all of your social network members that you have just finished pouring milk on your Froot Loops.

Privacy And Moderation

	“	Ning wrote me an e-mail telling me to change my links back to promoting Ning links, and to tell them when I did so. I feel like i’m the kid and they’re the babysitter	„
	—It gets a lot worse, trust me pal...

Ning prides itself on being highly secure and offers many choices on how you can moderate your fantastic webpage about the pottery/macramé class you took last summer. You can set your social group’s images of “How To Scrapbook Your Daughter’s Senior Year In High School” to display by default, or you can have your pictures of your cute Lhasa Apso, “Mung-Mung” set so that no internet bad guys can view the precious dear. Also, they offer the customary “delete fucking everything” option for when some 13 year old skriptkiddie flames you in your comments section and site-rips all of your backyard bikini pictures that nobody wants to see anyways.

Holy Shit

Fogeddaboutit, Ning ain't nothin' yo, you knowhatumsayin?

	“	Do I think that Ning is a scam or so called fraud… I am not sure…maybe not in the beginning but more and more I am being persuaded that they are ripping me off…	„
	—Ning user NCwhoneedstruth who probably shouldn't have posted his Ning account name...they are watching.

Ning is worth half a billion dollars. That is BILLION with a capital B. Who the hell invests in this crap? Haven’t they learned from such brilliant failures as “the dot com bubble.” Twitter, Dreamscape, and of course AOL itself? This sort of cash movement should make the average user a bit leery of the intent held by Ning itself, and it should also make the average user think twice about adding content of any sort to a conglomerate that Ning is turning out to be.

Keywords

The one widget that Widget Laboratories did not make for Ning users...I bet they wish they did now.

Charles Ponzi, here in his mug shot prior to being put in jail for several years.

Charles Ponzi again, who poses in front of his million dollar mansion. He was a millionaire until the day he died.

Bernie Madoff, a very famous pyramid scheme user...just like Ning.com!

As with almost all Web 2.0 sites and applications, the Ning website is filled with such key words as powerful, energetic, customized, freedom, flexible, important, dynamic, paradigm, and pinnacle. All of these words, while sounding vital, fresh, and new, are all really words taken directly from any “Idiot’s Guide To Marketing” type of book you can find. These keywords are used to create buzz and excitement. When you see these words on a social networking site, you know you are in for another mind-numbing, tedious, uninspired, dreary, tiring, repetitive, and lackluster experience. See what I did there?

Altercation And Controversy

	“	I am a network creator assisting a large non-profit. I guaranteed the people I work with that Ning was not what you have described (based on the very information provided to me by Ning — in the days before they went totally wacko). In the name of greed they abused me and have placed me in a very poor position with individuals I have worked with for years. Ning disgusts me. Poor, poor leadership - arrogant and abusive.	„
	—Another sucker.

Ning, like any other place where you cram a bunch of dingbats together under one roof, has its share of controversy. You cannot have humans in one place very long and expect to keep harmony amongst them. But there is a darker, more sinister side of Ning and it has recently reared its ugly head in the form of a brutal and forced conglomeration of social networks.

Removal Of Pornography

Gasp! No more pornography?

BOOOOOOOOOORINGGG

	“	To prevent porn, you have to take an activist stand against freedom of expression — you have to get in there and judge content, judge people, judge intent, and take action based on your judgments. I would never criticize a company for doing so, but I don’t want to do that, and we as a company don’t want to do that.	„
	—Marc Andreessen on porn…a few days before he decided to remove it.

Ning assured that there would be no respite from this common occurrence by removing porn from all of their networks in 2008, citing that pictures of teenage girls playing with their mother’s vibrator was not covered by the HALF A BILLION DOLLARS the site has at its disposal. They also stated that they were receiving a fairly large number of DMCA notices because people were hosting Bang Brothers video clips on the site.

Email Outrage

Prison rape and Ning...the same thing!

	“	Please do not send the email to my members. I pay you not to advertise on my site and I don’t think you should target my members directly.	„
	—Most Ning network administrators.

In March of 2009, Ning sent out spam to all users of the social networking sites it hosts. The spam basically told everybody to promote Ning like crazy. It didn’t matter if you had a hidden network on Ning or not, Ning demanded and got all of its members obedience because users had no other option; if you were on the site, your shit went public. This included information, pictures, and your profile. This especially angered users who had paid cash to have advertisements blocked because Ning just did it anyways, and if you didn’t like their decision, well…there’s the highway, bub.

“	Dear Network Creator, Since we launched the new Ning.com two weeks ago, we’ve heard from many of you about the increase in new members and activity you’ve seen as a result of it. Thank you for the kind words and we’re excited to hear that many of you are benefiting from it already. We have also heard requests from some of you who have purchased the premium service to remove Ning promotional links that we not contact members of your social network directly. As a company, we’ve always appreciated the open and honest dialog we have had with Network Creators on the Ning Platform. In this case, we’ve listened carefully to your feedback and wanted to let you know that as a Network Creator who has purchased the remove Ning promotional links premium service, we will not be sending an administrative message announcing the new Ning.com to members of your social network. We’ll continue to keep you in the loop on changes and new features for you to take advantage of on your social network on Ning and leave your communication with your members up to you. Thanks again for using Ning and continuing to provide great feedback to us. We appreciate it.	„

Inflation Of Numbers

Ning has stated that it has over 1 million social networks yet there are only around 23,000 members on the network devoted to Ning creators and users. They also state that each network creator is, on average, responsible for the creation of 47 social groups each. This is highly unlikely and is akin to every member of MySpace creating 47 different accounts…just for shits and giggles. Why would a site do this? Why would somebody attempt to inflate user numbers on purpose? This is just an obvious attempt to increase the number of investors that they are reeling in by showing that the site is successful and lucrative, and it is also a great way to set up an internet pyramid scheme...

Ning The Pyramid Scheme

Say...them Chinese is smart! China won't allow Ning.com

Describing Ning as deceptive and damaging...they are also stealing your content.

Everything is cool...except it sucks.

Where ever shall I put my blog???

Not a very flattering picture of Bianchini, but who cares as long as she can count money.

Ning's numbers keep inflating, like Marc Andreessen's fat belly and his bald spot.

When somebody photoshopped Andreessen as Ming the Merciless, they didn't realize how close to the truth they were hitting.

	“	ning is great if you want to make someone else rich off of your hard work lol	„
	—Pyramid victim

Instead of taking the time to build up a network of users and become the next Facebook, the owners and investors of Ning have decided to forgo all of that and just ride the wave of success on the backs of their own users. The plan works something like this:

• Create a social network platform.

• Build up a membership of fanatic users who love your freedom and flexibility.

• When the time is ripe, collect all of that content into a super site under one domain called Ning.com.

So far, this plan is going full steam and there are several notable events that bear this cheating, dirty and immoral course of action out:

• April 2008: Ning raises $60 million in funding. No network creators see a dime.

• August 2008: Ning shuts down app maker “Widget Laboratory.” Widget Laboratory is a company that designed applications for use on the Ning network of sites, but because they had achieved such deep penetration within Ning, they were considered competitors and were promptly removed.

	“	We have achieved a level of market penetration into the Ning community that has made WidgetLaboratory a somewhat “essential” resource for add-ons and widgets. Based upon the personal phone calls and correspondence from the entire Ning team, including their entire Executive staff, it would appear that they decided to eliminate WidgetLaboratory for anti-competitive purposes alone. This is truly ironic to us, given the fact that our products have demonstrably INCREASED the popularity of Ning and caused more customers of Ning to purchase their Premium Services.	„
	—Widget Labs press release after the kickban they received.

• Weeks after firing Widget Laboratory, they hired their main competitor Scripts4Ning…a company they could control more easily.

• August 2008: Ning bans access to all PHP files. If you are a developer who has used PHP on your site, say goodbye because you aren't going to see it ever again…even if you wrote it.

• December 2008: Ning shuts down its Network Creator Forum. Prior to this shut down, Ning had always been very quick to remove any sort of criticism directed towards them. Now instead of wasting time deleting individual posts that may be critical, they just take out the middleman and get rid of the whole forum. Any former posts that contain criticism of the site will re-direct to this page. Notice the keywords!

• December 2008: Ning removes all porn from the network…unless you happen to be an investor or have a social group that hauls in a lot of traffic…like 50 Cent’s Ning does. Normal, everyday users were given a few days to remove questionable content and thousands of groups were affected by the procedure. When users attempted to remove the porn, they found that they were locked out because of the August decision to ban access to files. Whoops…Ning grants limited access once again.

• February 2009: Ning changes their company slogan from “Create Your Own Social Network for Anything” to “Ning lets you create new social experiences for the most important people and interests in your life.” You are no longer free to do “anything” on Ning now, nor are you allowed to maintain control over creation of content. If you have made it and put it on Ning, it is theirs, not yours, and you cannot get it back. Notice that you are now allowed to “create social experiences,” which, roughly put means “you get fucked in the ass by Ning, and you will ask for second helpings…at our discretion.”

• Users of Ning are currently complaining of increased spam in their inboxes stating that they should join other social networks. This is an obvious effort to consolidate as many niche groups as possible under one banner.

	“	The entre reason I began creating my social network on Ning was because they promised over and over that “you own the content you own the code…	„
	—Yet another sucker.

All of these measures are designed to garner investors and to consolidate the site’s content further and further. Taking away content from the original creator and using it as if it were Ning’s own content until the site is all under one massive network just called “Ning” with no outside ability to control what was once yours.

	“	If we file a class action they will delete our networks. Our members then suffer even more. Ning has us right where they want us: totally powerless until we can move our network data off their servers or become so angry that we choose to sacrifice our networks and pursue legal action.	„
	—Angry@Ning

Quotes

“   Wow, accusing people of fraud is a pretty hefty charge, this is all conjecture founded by disgruntled pornsters.   „     —Sockpuppet for Gina     “   I have two networks with 20,000 members each. Ning promised NC’s would get more traffic from this. Guess what, they were right. Nigerian scammers have hit my sites big time, predadors looking for teens, and all the good things that come along with sharing our members with the general public. Ning is no longer meant for niche networks. Ning has become facebook and each network is now just a group. How well did Yahoo or MSN groups do?   „     —Hey, this Nigerian dude sounds legit...     “   by the way, NIng deleted the 15 page signature campaign you linked to in your article, which I think proves your point.   „     —Some guy from a stock company that is watching Ning for fraud.     “   I own a ning website with almost 10,000 members. forgive me but i’m worried about posting my site URL because of possible retaliation from ning. i started with ning 18 months ago and was VERY happy with them.   „     —This guy is scared...even when he is happy with them.     “   ex_ning they ARE monitoring this. i can confirm that. there’s been some people sniffing around on behalf of ning...   „     —The aluminum foil hat wearing crowd shows up.     “   I’m angry, but I don’t think Ning is evil. If they would let me actually control my content (like we originally agreed on) I would be much happier. I understand them having to make decisions for stability in regards to the third party devs, but publishing our members data in defiance of our clearly expressed wishes and not letting us port the content to another provider? That’s changing the rules in the middle of the game.   „     —Pretty much everybody feels this way.     “   As someone who has had several comments deleted from NING as fast as I could post them, I am a bit gun shy about really going into any depth with my many complaints.   „     —What the hell is going on here? Is Ning owned by the mafia?     “   Ok… I have been a NC using NING for less then a year… When I first considered Ning I went to their forums and found songs of praise on how great they are… So I moved to ning with the thought that I was was actually able to build my community and then eventually move to a new Platform when I could afford it.. Well I was a victim of all the above (except Adult Network closing -there are still many adult Networks just look at Ning.com ) It seems once a 3rd party dev.. stats making money off of ning… Ning then closes them (WL)or makes a fake announcement of a Partnership(S4N) and steals the 3rd party Dev ideas and scripts and then promises to supply them to all NC’s ( when and if Ning is ready to ) With shutting down the NC forum it slapped all of us in the face…It was like Ning saying” we don’t give a crap about your complaints, thoughts, or concerns…   „     —Another common set of complaints.     “   get back under Gina’s Bianchis desk where you belong. remember, not to much sugar or cream in the coffee hahahaha   „     —Wasn't suckered in, but hey Gina is kinda hot...     “   Any NC who ever glanced at Ning sites knew many of the biggest populations resided at adult porn sites like guys in wetsuits (not going diving - well maybe they were, but just not on a reef) etc ect. Ning biggest traffic sources in 2008 WERE porn sites. I saw it on alexa myself,s well as when I used to cruise the sites that had high traffic to see what they had going on   „     —Sure buddy, we all were just checking things out to see what was going on...     “   I interviewed with them many months ago. They have the most aggressive vibe I’ve seen at any company — growth at all costs! I don’t think they (execs, Bianchini, who knows where the blame “really” lies) care what their customers endure as long as they can show ‘phenomenal’ growth. I mean, shutting down the Network Creators forum? How low can you stoop?   „     —This guy should expect a bullet or two in the back of the head any minute now. Previous Quote | Next Quote

Video

There are literally thousands of Ning related videos located on YouTube and other web resources. Because the social site allows the embedding of such videos into it's web pages, each and every social network will cater it's videos to it's particular subject matter...here are a few small examples of what to expect:

There is a Ning for chubby chasers as well..join now, you know you want to!

Previous Video | Next Video

See Also

• bebo
• Blingee
• Broadcaster
• DeviantART
• digg
• facebook
• livejournal
• MySpace
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Mafia

External Links

• The site itself.

• Some dude blasting Ning for everything from fraud to corruption.

• Discussion on why social networking is dying out...god, I hope so.

• All of the Basket Weaving Ning networks gathered in one place for your ease and perusal.

• Dog Porn.

• The Game...you just lost it.

• Where many Ning members are now migrating.

• Widget Laboratory website...there is a blog.

• Furfaggotry on Ning