I really need to have a good reason to talk about events not directly related to Wikidot, but the news from Ning I have just read stunned me. Ning is an increasingly popular "social network builder" — you can create a site, invite friends, upload photos, set up a forum, discuss, share etc. Much like on Wikidot.
Yesterday, one month after Jason Rosenthal replaced Gina Bianchini as a new CEO, Ning announced that they will cut 69 jobs and completely shut down their free service. Ning will remain as a paid-only service. Needless to say, this really upset a lot of its users. Although Jason claims that 75% of their traffic comes from premium sites, vast majority of sites and users are still free.
It might seem that Ning is sending a clear message: "free does not work". It might sound scary, taking into account many similarities to Wikidot. Actually, I do not think this is true at all. Providing free services is very difficult and we know it from our own experience. But Wikidot has been offering free wikis for more than 3 years with large success.
The big difference between Wikidot and Ning is that Ning's growth is much like a bubble. Taking $119m investment (as opposed to little money we had just to get started), growing to 167 employers and burning the money just to grow the service without a reasonable revenue stream is like riding a roller coaster without seatbelts. Grow quickly, fall spectacularly. What I am guessing is that Ning has to prove its (estimated) value. And become profitable at any cost, even if this would mean making such dramatic actions.
At Wikidot, we treat "free" as an integral part of our service. We rather spend money on supporting free sites than on marketing and advertising — in the end free sites are our marketing strategy. We have a small, but dedicated team, work efficiently, keep costs low and care primarily about building a stable product, community and business.
Unlike Ning, we are not planing to close our free sites. There was not a single moment this could come to our minds. Sure, we do encourage our free users to upgrade to paid plans and we do put advertising on free sites from time to time. This helps us maintain the free version and provide a similar quality of service as to premium sites.
Now, if you come from Ning and are looking for an alternative — give Wikidot a try!
UPDATE: There is a great post and discussion at Signal vs. Noise, a weblog by 37signals: Eyeballs still don't pay the bills.
I can remember, when "Progress" - for all who believe this is a" hoover": this is a (very good !) database and integrated application software - started many years ago they give away the free version to schools and students.
And all outcoming MBA and students have known very well the software and the database. Years later in Business they decided (before any evaluation for a new Database ) to give progress a chance.
And Progress as a company had a very good business and start-up - growing to a big business in IT.
Today ?
Some years ago a CEO decided to stop these "free" licenses for students and the schools and universities (without any real needs - they had not lost money) and after 3-4 years there were no longer new students and managers outcoming from universities knowing progress.
They "new" managers and business people do not know progress anymore.
Only "insider" and "old" users use this database and software today.
Would be interesting - are there people knowing it?
I think - wikidot made the best decision to give away a kind of "free" for educational sites. - this is the best practice to learn young people what is possible and what they can use later for their own private or business life.
Service is my success. My webtips:www.blender.org (Open source), Wikidot-Handbook.
Sie können fragen und mitwirken in der deutschsprachigen » User-Gemeinschaft für WikidotNutzer oder
im deutschen » Wikidot Handbuch ?
A while ago, I was presenting my site at a music education technology event. I said that there are several wiki farms to choose from, but I use Wikidot because it gives an ad-free license for educational use (the audience were all teachers) and plenty of storage. I also introduced most of the Wikidot features I have used on my site.
Anyway, a doctor of music who has studied especially how to utilize social media with music education, was also lecturing there. He straightforwardly said that Wikispaces and Ning are the best services in this field. Well, at least the other one isn't free anymore.
I myself (kind of) tried to be neutral and told the audience to seek the best service provider for their needs (after telling them that Wikidot is probably the best one anyway :).
___TTT___/ http://www.trumpetexercises.net
(_|||_) \ - Janne
So, go out and research and pick the best one (PSST! The best one is Wikidot! Wikidot!) Subtle ;-)
~ Leiger - Wikidot Community Admin - Volunteer
Wikidot: Official Documentation | Wikidot Discord server | NEW: Wikiroo, backup tool (in development)
Thanks for leaving wikidot free, in my opinion is the best wiki platform.
Is quite obvious that Wikidot has a wiki site as philosophy behind it and Ning has social network behind it.
I manage both Wikidot and Ning sites and I find not so easy migrate from Ning platform starting from a vanilla Wikidot site. Members, Groups, Forums, Blogs need some syntax skill to to be set up, perhaps you could create some sort of template ready to use.
MacTutorial Subtitles, Wik-iPad, HTML5 App, FreeSMUG
Have you seen http://irongiant.wikidot.com ? It should help a lot!
Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me
There are still a lot of unhappy people over at Ning judging by the comments at http://blog.ning.com/2010/04/an-update-from-ning.html
Just thinking out loud but wouldn't it be good if the Wikidot developers or clever people like Tsank could find a way to migrate an entire Ning site over to Wikidot.
Rob Elliott - Strathpeffer, Scotland - Wikidot first line support & community admin team.
I don't think it is that easy to migrate Ning users to Wikidot. And without a working API going, I find it hard to believe that anyone can make a migration tool for Ning without touching internal codes :S
Kenneth Tsang (@jxeeno)
I really like what you have at WikiDot but in order to really help many of the folks that might migrate from Ning you would need to have a WYSIWYG Editor.
Expecting many base "Users" to learn and easily use Wiki Syntax is a bit of a reach don't you think.
Is it possible to add something like "TinyMCE" to the platform? Otherwise think you have a very nice collaborative offering.
[never mind] when I 1st checked forums and docs it appeared that one needed to use Wiki Syntax, however in digging in it looks a like most functions for contribution editing are there. Thanks! Feel free to delete this entry :)
Not going to delete anything (unless you really want it gone :P)
If you want to customise the layout of your site, you're most likely going to need to use both CSS and the wikidot syntax. If you need any help with that, feel free to ask over at the community — http://community.wikidot.com/forum:start
~ Leiger - Wikidot Community Admin - Volunteer
Wikidot: Official Documentation | Wikidot Discord server | NEW: Wikiroo, backup tool (in development)
I have to say that the very MOMENT I received the e-mail from Ning announcing this, I "unsubscribed" from e-mail updates and deleted my Ning page. No problem. I mean, hey, I know where I'm not wanted. I came to wikidot specifically because another "free" wiki site repeatedly made me feel unwanted. That other wiki was a bit more "user friendly," but I'd rather be where I can get help with my questions and not treated like I'm a bother. I am having a BEAR of a time transferring content over here, but as I do, I'm closing those pages, too.
An API is apparently in the works. Eventually people will be able to write some applications that do the work with transferring from other services for you I suspect, unfortunately that couldn't come soon enough ;-)
You're right with one thing - the major bonus with Wikidot is it's community, and the focus on free users upgrading because they get something extra from doing so… not because they feel limited with a free account.
If you need any help feel free to post a message over at the community: http://community.wikidot.com/forum:start - there are people on all timezones watching that site so usually you can expect some very quick answers.
Good luck :)
~ Leiger - Wikidot Community Admin - Volunteer
Wikidot: Official Documentation | Wikidot Discord server | NEW: Wikiroo, backup tool (in development)
yes for this post!
and yes in wikidot we could really do more to be matched as social networking , it is needed, and it is needed more as ning was the escape from facebook and now it in its problems as your post describes…
and yes growing slow is the key, we grow only by invitation by friends understanding comcomism and only as our members are the owners of networking, hence as such they must agree to the entry of the new ones.
some of you hered some are new to this concept, please look again into the comcom-social, here is its ning version and your are very much invited.
http://comcom-social.comcomism.com/
see also its Wiki the wikidot sites.
This comment is for finding ways to cooperate, so please let me know your opinion as for how could we make comcom-social within wikidot platform.
all the best
gtgl - Good Time Good Luck
e
me:) + 99occupy + yes i am angry! + yes again we can + pile + comcomist <= namzezam :)