I agree, Ning is much better suited to a group like Grasshoppers.
No reason there can't still be a page on Facebook, just so people can find it. I see having a Facebook/MySpace page like being listed in the Yellow Pages - tells people who you are and how to contact you, but you don't necessarily have to conduct all your business there.
David Sklar
· 2 years ago
Hi, Chris. Glad you're enjoying Ning so far!
One quick comment about our APIs -- they are indeed open. All of the APIs that the "Your Own Social Network" application uses are available for developers to do whatever they want with.
I hate to call you out Chris, but you're being 2 faced or I don't get what you twittered.
You brag in this post about the Ning folks helping you out by giving you the "import 20", but on your tweet, you rip them as dumb*sses.
I understand you may have been frustrated at the time, but it does make you look two faced.
chrisbrogan
· 2 years ago
Hi Rob- I call my best friends dumbasses, too. I should've said "dumbapps." But yes, I Twittered that in frustration at the start of trying something new.
But they were immediately nice to me when I pointed out what bugged me.
Gina and David and others from Ning have already contacted me, and I rescind all dumb-ass comments.
Shall I clarify via Twitter? I will. : )
Thanks for keeping me honest.
Sarah
· 2 years ago
I agree that Ning is much better for what we're doing - I'd much rather have updates in my reader than have to remember to check Facebook several times a day.
I think there's just some confusion about the ultimate goal of the Ning network - it might be helped by a Wall post on the FB page telling everyone that you want to move the bulk of the discussions over to Ning, and encouraging them to go join and chat over there (assuming I'm understanding the goals here correctly...) =)
Jeff
· 2 years ago
I love ning and have put together some networks there myself. I am trying to get one going for the diabetic community as I try to stay informed of things I do wrong. Like drink myself into oblivion in NYC!
Eric Rice
· 2 years ago
I tried to make my group at Facebook, but I started to find that I couldn't follow it and use it... I hated Ning at first, but, to be fair, checked it out again and saw that it worked well. RSS alone and benig able to plop ANYthing into those Text boxes (we have a chat room on infocalypse and also, my new love, ZOHO works there-- although often formatted to big for the colums).
And if you choose, you don't have to be a Ning member to read and/or subscribe. I'm okay with some stuff being in a walled garden but other stuff, no.
I'm happy to have a social network of 30. Why? Because size/amount of people isn't what matters to me.
Rick Mahn
· 2 years ago
I also agree Ning is the place for Grasshoppers. The ability to get the data out is again key with me as well. Because of this, I've created a "Grasshoppers" tag in Google Reader, and can put all the feeds that are important from anywhere in the Grasshoppers network and parse them at once.
Can't do that with Facebook.
Marti
· 2 years ago
I'm brand new to both, will have to learn the ropes before deciding what's better. Appreciate the explanation, though.
Kate C
· 2 years ago
I think Ning is a better tool for active communities than Facebook; while Facebook is better for keeping in touch with your friends. The diiversity of content you can use easily on Ning is great. But suspect you're right about needing a feeder site like Facebook :-)
Tim Shey
· 2 years ago
Aw, thanks for the kind mention, Chris. I recommended you reach out to Gina because she (like you) is a superhero of mine -- her Ning blog is a must-read for anyone wanting to learn how to build community and success around a product -- and as you've seen, she's unbelievably responsive to emails and requests from her customers.
Robert Scoble
· 2 years ago
Funny, I added Grasshoppers to my groups on Facebook BECAUSE it was Chris Brogan, who I had made friends with over on Twitter and via Jeff Pulver and other places.
But, I haven't yet joined the Ning group. Why? I'm lazy. It was easy to join on Facebook because I already was there. Joining yet another place involves a little more work.
I'm tired of joining social networks and it will piss us off more and more as we are forced to join more and more of them.
From now on I'd rather just stick with Twitter or Facebook. I don't see a good reason to join another network.
If it were anyone BUT Chris Brogan telling me this I'd probably tell him to go jump in a lake.
I do feel used, though.
chrisbrogan
· 2 years ago
Sorry you feel used, Robert. If you do, it means I didn't communicate well.
Why stray from Facebook? No RSS. A TOS that says they can take without giving. Seems like two good rasons.
Reasons to stay on Facebook? It's a nice platform. It's smooth, clean, easy to work with, has a big pile of people there.
Point above all points: Grasshoppers is people. If you're not down because it's not a FB app, it's probably there that I've lost you in the translation.
I respect your thoughts and opinions.
Chris Cavs
· 2 years ago
Chris, The problem is burnout. Many people saw this coming. Seems like every other week there's another Social network or SN tool popping up on the scene. And of course EVERYONE has to join the new club. It's come to the point where a lot of us are burned out and are sticking with the ones that work and that we enjoy, whether they have all the tools we want/need or not.
In fact, you seem to jump the gun a lot. A new network comes out, and bam! you're already finding what's wrong with it. Ya gotta let it grow man. Sometimes the features are on the way.
Anyway, my point is we're finally crashing. Many of us are going to stick with a few things that work for us. Some will follow the Pied Piper, but others will stay at home.
Thanks for being the Piper.
Eric Rice
· 2 years ago
Gosh, I'm so biting my lip right now.
fleaSha
· 2 years ago
Chris, All I can say is THANK YOU for creating the ning group. I like it a lot. I do not like facebook. I'm probably the only one who doesn't. oh well...
Ning is easy. period.
Thanks.
Mark Forman
· 2 years ago
First let me say as always-Chris I admire your energy and dedication to do good community/social works. For me, I started an A.Connector group on Facebook to tie in to and offer a connection for friends and people of similar social media interests on Facebook. This was in addition to the blog that already existed.
I can appreciate you wanting to do a non-Facebook presence due to being accessible without having to become a member,etc. So you do a Google Group and and Ning-all good. I agree with Scoble-for me, joining the one Grasshoppers is enough. Not to say it is more righteous to be in the Facebook one, and pooh pooh the lowly GoogleGroup and Ning, just enough for me.
I don't approve of snobbery, but I don't approve of overkill either. You of course are free to do as many Grasshopper groups in as many forms as you wish.
I would have guessed that you were hoping to pull in different people at each place than drag your one member ship to all portals?
Anyhow, keep the good energy and community building coming. Peace!
tagami
· 2 years ago
you can ask people to come to your content, or you can bring your content to people. I'm not saying the way FB is playing is the right way, but - they do have your friends neatly aggregated.
Where are the other places that allow this that are also open?
Rick Mahn
· 2 years ago
I'm a little disappointed with you Scoble. I understand your point, but "used" is a little much.
Tim Shey
· 2 years ago
I think the whole agonizing about switching platforms - Facebook, Ning, Twitter, Pownce, wherever -- is a very short-term problem. It's a matter of time before technologies like RSS and openID will allow social groups to super-distribute themselves and live in many places at once -- so that people can participate in forums, share media, etc. at the destination they prefer. Ning seems to embrace that already with easy exporting and importing of anything that can be distributed via RSS -- and soon a group like Grasshoppers could have little outposts everywhere, from this blog to Facebook to a dozen other places, and people should be able to chime in from any of them.
It seems like a simple enough problem, and one that will be solved soon. Portable, transportable communities... the next big thing.
chrisbrogan
· 2 years ago
It's not that there will be a dozen places to check. There will be us. We will make the right choice and it will move us all towards a system where we can be helpful.
This isn't about the software. It's not about the bike. Change is scary, but come on. We're not set in our ways after a few days. Have you been less helpful because of the shift? I'm going to guess no.
Because it's about that alone. Now, see if you can't find something on the Grasshoppers group to do. We can keep talking about this, because it's useful. And we can also work on things.
geo geller
· 2 years ago
yo chris - so i read through all the posts and think Robert Scoble has a point about being battle fatigued - one thought is why can't you keep your legacy group serviced on FB and also cross pollinate with Ning or anything else that resonates with you in time - we don't live in a fixed virtual world - as lauri anderson once said - "What's New has been replaced by what's Next" who knows what the future holds... i just think you alert people to your spreading you wings to Ning or whatever else come down the pike and keep growing and exploring and finding better mouse traps and learning what you need to teach - food for thought geo
Michelle Lamar
· 2 years ago
Here is my analogy: It's like Eating at a Restaurant.
Facebook is an all you can eat buffet. You get lots of choices and you get dessert. Ning is the place you go when you want to have a really excellent meal with lots of courses in a smaller place where you can talk to people more in depth. There's room for both. I like both. It doesn't have to be one or the other. That's the beauty of it.
I was all fired-up about Grasshoppers over at Facebook. When I saw that it was being moved, I had an instant of "o shit" but quickly got over it once I saw how totally easy it was to set up and go over at Ning. After 30 seconds at Ning, I knew Chris was so right to do the move.
I have the attention span of a flea and Ning was TOTALLY painless. Less than one minute of set up, it's just that easy.
Shaine
· 2 years ago
I joined up on Ning because I already had an account. I really did not want to do it, but I saw that they added badges, and I can dig badges.
Connie Crosby
· 2 years ago
I love the responsiveness of Gina et al at Ning.
Also, Facebook is blocked in some places so having access via Ning helps get around that problem.
It is just another tool. The trick is finding the right tool for a community. I think we can make Ning work.
Cheers, Connie
Bill Streeter
· 2 years ago
It's funny, that a few of us have seemed to discover Ning at about the same time. I came to it because of the Jet Set Show, and thought it would work for LO-FI. So about a week ago I went public with it and I am amazed that it's working so well. I've been looking for a platform to extend my audience into a community for a while, and I looked long and hard at different message board systems, as well as things like Drupal and Joomla, but nothing had the features that I wanted. Ning had the goods and after I saw what Zadi and Steve had built I knew that that Ning was the Thing. So far my users really seem to love it.
Michael
· 2 years ago
I would love to share a new tool with your readers. BigString is a free email service
that allows a user to easily send, recall, erase, self-destruct and modify an email after it has been sent. BigString users
have unprecedented control over all of their email, whether they choose to send it through the BigString.com website or even
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It is inevitable. At one point or another in your life, you’ve sent an email to a colleague, client, family member or
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Yesterday's mailing lists are today's RSS feeds are tomorrow's ... The question is, what can you do with these tools? I think we're getting somewhere with the Grasshoppers Network Conference. Although it's live and therefore not convenient for everyone all the time, it's also available in recorded form via several web pages and RSS including iTunes.
All Comments
No reason there can't still be a page on Facebook, just so people can find it. I see having a Facebook/MySpace page like being listed in the Yellow Pages - tells people who you are and how to contact you, but you don't necessarily have to conduct all your business there.
One quick comment about our APIs -- they are indeed open. All of the APIs that the "Your Own Social Network" application uses are available for developers to do whatever they want with.
Diego wrote a good explanation of how all this works at: http://developer.ning.com/2007/07/07/one_small_...
There is API documentation here: http://docs.ning.com/page/page/show?id=492524:P...
Best,
David Sklar
Software Architect @ Ning
You brag in this post about the Ning folks helping you out by giving you the "import 20", but on your tweet, you rip them as dumb*sses.
I understand you may have been frustrated at the time, but it does make you look two faced.
But they were immediately nice to me when I pointed out what bugged me.
Gina and David and others from Ning have already contacted me, and I rescind all dumb-ass comments.
Shall I clarify via Twitter? I will. : )
Thanks for keeping me honest.
I think there's just some confusion about the ultimate goal of the Ning network - it might be helped by a Wall post on the FB page telling everyone that you want to move the bulk of the discussions over to Ning, and encouraging them to go join and chat over there (assuming I'm understanding the goals here correctly...) =)
And if you choose, you don't have to be a Ning member to read and/or subscribe. I'm okay with some stuff being in a walled garden but other stuff, no.
I'm happy to have a social network of 30. Why? Because size/amount of people isn't what matters to me.
Can't do that with Facebook.
But, I haven't yet joined the Ning group. Why? I'm lazy. It was easy to join on Facebook because I already was there. Joining yet another place involves a little more work.
I'm tired of joining social networks and it will piss us off more and more as we are forced to join more and more of them.
From now on I'd rather just stick with Twitter or Facebook. I don't see a good reason to join another network.
If it were anyone BUT Chris Brogan telling me this I'd probably tell him to go jump in a lake.
I do feel used, though.
Why stray from Facebook? No RSS. A TOS that says they can take without giving. Seems like two good rasons.
Reasons to stay on Facebook? It's a nice platform. It's smooth, clean, easy to work with, has a big pile of people there.
Point above all points: Grasshoppers is people. If you're not down because it's not a FB app, it's probably there that I've lost you in the translation.
I respect your thoughts and opinions.
In fact, you seem to jump the gun a lot. A new network comes out, and bam! you're already finding what's wrong with it. Ya gotta let it grow man. Sometimes the features are on the way.
Anyway, my point is we're finally crashing. Many of us are going to stick with a few things that work for us. Some will follow the Pied Piper, but others will stay at home.
Thanks for being the Piper.
All I can say is THANK YOU for creating the ning group. I like it a lot. I do not like facebook. I'm probably the only one who doesn't. oh well...
Ning is easy. period.
Thanks.
I can appreciate you wanting to do a non-Facebook presence due to being accessible without having to become a member,etc. So you do a Google Group and and Ning-all good. I agree with Scoble-for me, joining the one Grasshoppers is enough. Not to say it is more righteous to be in the Facebook one, and pooh pooh the lowly GoogleGroup and Ning, just enough for me.
I don't approve of snobbery, but I don't approve of overkill either. You of course are free to do as many Grasshopper groups in as many forms as you wish.
I would have guessed that you were hoping to pull in different people at each place than drag your one member ship to all portals?
Anyhow, keep the good energy and community building coming. Peace!
Where are the other places that allow this that are also open?
It seems like a simple enough problem, and one that will be solved soon. Portable, transportable communities... the next big thing.
This isn't about the software. It's not about the bike. Change is scary, but come on. We're not set in our ways after a few days. Have you been less helpful because of the shift? I'm going to guess no.
Because it's about that alone. Now, see if you can't find something on the Grasshoppers group to do. We can keep talking about this, because it's useful. And we can also work on things.
Facebook is an all you can eat buffet. You get lots of choices and you get dessert. Ning is the place you go when you want to have a really excellent meal with lots of courses in a smaller place where you can talk to people more in depth. There's room for both. I like both. It doesn't have to be one or the other. That's the beauty of it.
I was all fired-up about Grasshoppers over at Facebook. When I saw that it was being moved, I had an instant of "o shit" but quickly got over it once I saw how totally easy it was to set up and go over at Ning. After 30 seconds at Ning, I knew Chris was so right to do the move.
I have the attention span of a flea and Ning was TOTALLY painless. Less than one minute of set up, it's just that easy.
Also, Facebook is blocked in some places so having access via Ning helps get around that problem.
It is just another tool. The trick is finding the right tool for a community. I think we can make Ning work.
Cheers,
Connie
that allows a user to easily send, recall, erase, self-destruct and modify an email after it has been sent. BigString users
have unprecedented control over all of their email, whether they choose to send it through the BigString.com website or even
Microsoft Outlook.
It is inevitable. At one point or another in your life, you’ve sent an email to a colleague, client, family member or
significant other that’s been highly regrettable. Even before pressing send, you knew it was a bad idea, yet you rolled the
dice and clicked anyway, only to cringe at what you wrote later on.
http://www.BigString.com
Have a great day!
Michael
Listen now: http://grasshoppersnetwork.org/latest.htm
Subscribe via RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/GrasshoppersConference
Keep up with topics:
http://grasshoppersnetwork.org/topics.php
Still waiting for the next http://Kiva.org