... the other Black experience
Wondering if this site will be closing in july like all other ning sites?
Just curious as to what will happen to this site in july, will stay open, move to another network, or close completely?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Q.A.Bradford on -
???
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Permalink Reply by Miss Lashea on -
Ning is going to start charging a fee for all ning sites, mostly all of the other ning sites that I am on are closing so I was wondering if afropunk was staying on here or not.
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Permalink Reply by Q.A.Bradford on
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One month after long-time Ning CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal, the company is making some major changes: It 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. Rosenthal has also just announced that the company has cut nearly 70 people — over 40% of its staff. Here’s the email Rosenthal just sent out to the company:
Team,
When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what’s working, what’s not, and what we need to do now to make Ning a big success.
My main conclusion is that we need to double down on our premium services business. Our Premium Ning Networks like Friends or Enemies, Linkin Park, Shred or Die, Pickens Plan, and tens of thousands of others both drive 75% of our monthly US traffic, and those Network Creators need and will pay for many more services and features from us.
So, we are going to change our strategy to devote 100% of our resources to building the winning product to capture this big opportunity. We will phase out our free service. Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning. We will judge ourselves by our ability to enable and power Premium Ning Networks at huge scale. And all of our product development capability will be devoted to making paying Network Creators extremely happy.
As a consequence of this change, I have also made the very tough decision to reduce the size of our team from 167 people to 98 people. As hard as this is to do, I am confident that this is the right decision for our company, our business, and our customers. Marc and I will work diligently with everyone affected by this to help them find great opportunities at other companies.
I’ve never seen a more talented and devoted team, and it has been my privilege to get to know and work with each and every one of you over the last 18 months.
We’ll use today to say goodbye to our friends and teammates who will be leaving the company. Tomorrow, I will take you through, in detail, our plans for the next three months and our new focus.
Thanks,
Jason Rosenthal
Ning’s announcement also says that it will be giving network creators more details in the next two weeks.
While the email talks about Free versus Premium paid networks, Ning actually has a variety of different premium upgrades. Currently, Ning’s 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 you’re running on Ning ($25 a month).
As a result of today’s news I suspect we’ll see quite a few active networks jump to whatever the cheapest premium option is; I don’t expect Ning to make it especially easy to port their data to a different service. There will also certainly be a backlash from Ning’s vocal community of Network Creators, many of whom have invested quite of bit of time building out their niche networks.
While the massive layoffs are obviously a big hit to the company, it isn’t all bad news for Ning: the service is still seeing its traffic grow according to comScore (see graph below). But traffic growth is no longer good enough for the company — it needs to start generating some serious revenue, and advertising clearly isn’t cutting it. Ning has raised around $120 million, getting valuations of a half-billion dollars in April 2008 and a reported $750 million last summer.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/15/nings-bubble-bursts-no-more-free-n...
(news without citation is rumor. keep it real!)
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Permalink Reply by Lunakiss on -
Oh no. I'll pay $5 a month if I have to stay on here. I feel like this is home to me.
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Permalink Reply by JamadianUK on -
less than nonsense dating sites so I'll pay an annual fee no problem.
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Permalink Reply by Q.A.Bradford on
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A good idea is to also use the festival for funding the website..
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Permalink Reply by Miss Lashea on
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No problem @Jahluv and thank you Aminata for posting the article for us, thanks!
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Permalink Reply by Matthew on -
Hi Guys
I'm going to take a long hard look at this next week. What you guys don't know is we are already paying for many functions on NING, Aminata mentions a few of them in the article below. This network hasn't been free since i created it 3 years ago - the realization that some one has to pay for the site every one uses for free is one i welcome. LUNAKISS, JAMADIANUK thank you so much for saying you would pay a monthly fee. Most people on here do not value the community enough to offer a monthly subscription. If they did I would not be considering closing down the site.
At you Aminata: You mention the festival paying for the site, who pays for the festival ? People also want that to be free, they complain about the sponsors because its not punk, the sponsors that we are able to convince do not pay enough to float the festival so some one has to pay for that also. We have not broken even at the festival in 6 years, this year being the biggest loss or investment depending on how you look at it. But investing would be a dirty word for most people on here so lets stick with LOSS, no one seems to mind that their is potentially some one losing money as long as its not them.
Thanks to the few of you that do care.
slightly bitter and twisted.
Matthew
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Permalink Reply by Golem_3 on -
Matthew said:
wowHi Guys
I'm going to take a long hard look at this next week. What you guys don't know is we are already paying for many functions on NING, Aminata mentions a few of them in the article below. This network hasn't been free since i created it 3 years ago - the realization that some one has to pay for the site every one uses for free is one i welcome. LUNAKISS, JAMADIANUK thank you so much for saying you would pay a monthly fee. Most people on here do not value the community enough to offer a monthly subscription. If they did I would not be considering closing down the site.
At you Aminata: You mention the festival paying for the site, who pays for the festival ? People also want that to be free, they complain about the sponsors because its not punk, the sponsors that we are able to convince do not pay enough to float the festival so some one has to pay for that also. We have not broken even at the festival in 6 years, this year being the biggest loss or investment depending on how you look at it. But investing would be a dirty word for most people on here so lets stick with LOSS, no one seems to mind that their is potentially some one losing money as long as its not them.
Thanks to the few of you that do care.
slightly bitter and twisted.
Matthew
not @ you Matthew, but just the issue at hand.
I've been a part of AP since early '04.
I'm not sure if you met me, but I met Spooner.
anyway,.. in the discussion (about Toyota, and Spooner leaving, and other sponsorship) I'm one of the few people that see no problem with sponsorship/ funding resources (whatever they may be).
The reality is--- EVERYthing cost money.
Business is not a dirty word.
"Selling out" is when you compromise your art for the sake of commerce.
Using money from entities (to sell your vision) is not selling out.
We all like free stuff, myself included,.. but everything can't be free all the time.
Especially in regards to people who complain about AP not being "punk", yet they wont put their money where their mouth is.
I'm a freelance/indie filmmaker, and I WISH I had the backing of, say, Weinstein or DreamWorks or Lucas or Paramount or even HARPO productions
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Permalink Reply by Compound Egret on -
Matthew said:Hi Guys
I'm going to take a long hard look at this next week. What you guys don't know is we are already paying for many functions on NING, Aminata mentions a few of them in the article below. This network hasn't been free since i created it 3 years ago - the realization that some one has to pay for the site every one uses for free is one i welcome. LUNAKISS, JAMADIANUK thank you so much for saying you would pay a monthly fee. Most people on here do not value the community enough to offer a monthly subscription. If they did I would not be considering closing down the site.
At you Aminata: You mention the festival paying for the site, who pays for the festival ? People also want that to be free, they complain about the sponsors because its not punk, the sponsors that we are able to convince do not pay enough to float the festival so some one has to pay for that also. We have not broken even at the festival in 6 years, this year being the biggest loss or investment depending on how you look at it. But investing would be a dirty word for most people on here so lets stick with LOSS, no one seems to mind that their is potentially some one losing money as long as its not them.
Thanks to the few of you that do care.
slightly bitter and twisted.
Matthew
Wow. Your frustration is palpable, but understandable. People think you are laughing all the way to the bank when you are really running a deficit. If the site is going to close down please give us some notice. Thanks.
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Permalink Reply by AfroCuban on -
I'm willing to subscribe too (times are okay now, hopefully they'll stay that way)
Matthew said:Hi Guys
I'm going to take a long hard look at this next week. What you guys don't know is we are already paying for many functions on NING, Aminata mentions a few of them in the article below. This network hasn't been free since i created it 3 years ago - the realization that some one has to pay for the site every one uses for free is one i welcome. LUNAKISS, JAMADIANUK thank you so much for saying you would pay a monthly fee. Most people on here do not value the community enough to offer a monthly subscription. If they did I would not be considering closing down the site.
At you Aminata: You mention the festival paying for the site, who pays for the festival ? People also want that to be free, they complain about the sponsors because its not punk, the sponsors that we are able to convince do not pay enough to float the festival so some one has to pay for that also. We have not broken even at the festival in 6 years, this year being the biggest loss or investment depending on how you look at it. But investing would be a dirty word for most people on here so lets stick with LOSS, no one seems to mind that their is potentially some one losing money as long as its not them.
Thanks to the few of you that do care.
slightly bitter and twisted.
Matthew
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Permalink Reply by Q.A.Bradford on
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I'd pay. And also, to those who say that sponsorship is not "punk", whatever. This is "afropunk". I say use
sponsorship as much as will make things better.
Matthew said:Hi Guys
I'm going to take a long hard look at this next week. What you guys don't know is we are already paying for many functions on NING, Aminata mentions a few of them in the article below. This network hasn't been free since i created it 3 years ago - the realization that some one has to pay for the site every one uses for free is one i welcome. LUNAKISS, JAMADIANUK thank you so much for saying you would pay a monthly fee. Most people on here do not value the community enough to offer a monthly subscription. If they did I would not be considering closing down the site.
At you Aminata: You mention the festival paying for the site, who pays for the festival ? People also want that to be free, they complain about the sponsors because its not punk, the sponsors that we are able to convince do not pay enough to float the festival so some one has to pay for that also. We have not broken even at the festival in 6 years, this year being the biggest loss or investment depending on how you look at it. But investing would be a dirty word for most people on here so lets stick with LOSS, no one seems to mind that their is potentially some one losing money as long as its not them.
Thanks to the few of you that do care.
slightly bitter and twisted.
Matthew
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