NING Networks no longer free

[Tony]

The new pricing for NING networks can be found here:

http://about.ning.com/announcement/

So where to from here?

We have some time, firstly let's follow a path of elimination of the major choices.

1 - Stay at NING (roughly $200 per year), not sure about price indexing ?

2 - Move (using the automated content exporter when it becomes available) to a FREE newtork hosting service or cheaper alternative?

Kind Regards,
Tony

[ian]

Good luck Tony. We appreciate all that you and brad do for us. What ever decision you make I am sure will be the correct one. I love this site and spend a lot of time here. Hopefully we can figure out a way to keep it up and running without a fee. I am sure most of us wouldn't mind donating but probably can't. Either way, Thanks!

[Simmy]

Tony, I'm easy going. We can stay and I'll pay my part or we can move to a free network hosting. I'll be happy either way, as long as we stay together! :)

[Trudy]

Yes Tony I appreciate all that YOU do for us :)))
Brad is out of the picture. .He has left this site.
So it is up to Tony and he knows he is not alone in this ...
Whatever you decide Tony is alright for me ...

[Ullan]

A sticky situation, that's for certain.

In my humble opinion, $200/year should not pose an issue. Considering the number of members we currently have, if everyone donates $1, we're good for a while. Even if not, I'm sure we can find several people willing to donate something closer to $10 to finance a single year of the network.

On the other hand, this community has moved in the past through different services before ending up at Ning for a while. Perhaps it is time to, once more, move on.

The decision is yours Tony, and I'm sure you'll make the right one.

[Tony]

No chance of that alas Ian, if we stay we have to chose one of the NING plans. See link.

ian said:

Good luck Tony. We appreciate all that you and brad do for us. What ever decision you make I am sure will be the correct one. I love this site and spend a lot of time here. Hopefully we can figure out a way to keep it up and running without a fee. I am sure most of us wouldn't mind donating but probably can't. Either way, Thanks!

[Tony]

Thank you Trudy, my choice will be based on member preference.

Trudy said:

Yes Tony I appreciate all that YOU do for us :)))
Brad is out of the picture. .He has left this site.
So it is up to Tony and he knows he is not alone in this ...
Whatever you decide Tony is alright for me ...

[Tony]

Thank you Ullan, as mentioned to Trudy the choice will be based on member feedback

Ullan said:

A sticky situation, that's for certain.

In my humble opinion, $200/year should not pose an issue. Considering the number of members we currently have, if everyone donates $1, we're good for a while. Even if not, I'm sure we can find several people willing to donate something closer to $10 to finance a single year of the network.

On the other hand, this community has moved in the past through different services before ending up at Ning for a while. Perhaps it is time to, once more, move on.

The decision is yours Tony, and I'm sure you'll make the right one.

[Tony]

Haha Patricia, believe it or not but I am a technical monkey. I would have to look into the "donation tank". But first things first based on feedback, stay or look elsewhere. I am sure if we decide to stay the finaces will be sorted out.

paTricia T. said:

LoL I vote to stay here simply because I am a technology retard and have no idea of how to transfer. LOL. Having said that...do what you need to do Tony. But really, $200 is nothing for a full year. As Ullan said, we can surely come up with it. So here is my question, how do we start the donation tank. Do we use paypal???

[Juan]

Hello all,

Ullan have a point, we are like 2400 members, lets just say than 10 % of us can donate one dollar each, we will easily make the $200 and if somebody donate more like $5 or $10 or who knows maybe $20, we will reach our goal even easier. We can try the donation through paypal to see how it goes.

Worse case scenario is moving to a free network, my question will be, there is any network that come close technically speaking to this one?

Third option:
It just occurs to me, if we go for the donation through paypal or any other method, we may not need to get $200 for ning network either. For the third option we just need like $60 for the hosting per year and $7 for the domain to get our own web site. If you go to godady.com for $75 you get your own website hosting with 150 GB Space | 1,500 GB Transfer, 500 Email Accounts + 25 MySQL Databases for a year.
The 25 MySQL Databases totally don´t know what it means but it sounds fancy!!!

If space is the problem, they have the unlimited everything for like $170 per year, even we can pay like $15 monthly if we can not have the $170 right now. So if donations comes steady of $20 per month we can make it.

Also, what if we have some paid publicity in the site, if we are the owners (by we I mean Tony) I´m sure some new age businesses would love to advertise in this site because we probably get more than thousands of visits per month... for then means business...

So, these are my thoughts about it, whatever the members and Tony decide I´m in, we are all one anyways!!!

I´m sorry that my business side start to come up with ideas...

[Besimi]

SAVIORS OF EARTH ,WILL GO ON DEFINITELY !!!!!! ,NO QUESTION ABOUT IT :):):).

But wich Plan ,do we choose : Ning Plus ($200) or Ning Pro ($500).
--- If Ning Pro ,I pay $300 myself and for the rest You guys could help.
--- If Ning Plus ,I pay for it All myself. ...Definitely.


Ning Plus
The tools and features you need to build and grow a branded social network with high engagement – an incredible value at a great price ...$19.95/month
or $199.95/year* (save 16%) - Full feature set including events, groups, chat, pages and Ning AppsHelp Center support
..............................................................................Help Center support

Ning Pro
The ideal solution for building a comprehensive social experience, including additional features, integration, support and bandwidth
$49.95/month
or $499.95/year* (save 17%) - Full feature set plus video and music uploads and branded players
..............................................................................Premium support

[Tony]

Indeed, a free service would only be free for how long? Think we have been there at NING and would come full circle again.

Juan said:

Hello all,

Ullan have a point, we are like 2400 members, lets just say than 10 % of us can donate one dollar each, we will easily make the $200 and if somebody donate more like $5 or $10 or who knows maybe $20, we will reach our goal even easier. We can try the donation through paypal to see how it goes.

Worse case scenario is moving to a free network, my question will be, there is any network that come close technically speaking to this one?

Third option:
It just occurs to me, if we go for the donation through paypal or any other method, we may not need to get $200 for ning network either. For the third option we just need like $60 for the hosting per year and $7 for the domain to get our own web site. If you go to godady.com for $75 you get your own website hosting with 150 GB Space | 1,500 GB Transfer, 500 Email Accounts + 25 MySQL Databases for a year.
The 25 MySQL Databases totally don´t know what it means but it sounds fancy!!!

If space is the problem, they have the unlimited everything for like $170 per year, even we can pay like $15 monthly if we can not have the $170 right now. So if donations comes steady of $20 per month we can make it.

Also, what if we have some paid publicity in the site, if we are the owners (by we I mean Tony) I´m sure some new age businesses would love to advertise in this site because we probably get more than thousands of visits per month... for then means business...

So, these are my thoughts about it, whatever the members and Tony decide I´m in, we are all one anyways!!!

I´m sorry that my business side start to come up with ideas...

[Tony]

Ahhhhhh... love the enthusiasm and bliss...... I see your point about NING, it is a trusted site to us all by now and has my preference.

Besimi said:

SAVIORS OF EARTH ,WILL GO ON DEFINITELY !!!!!! ,NO QUESTION ABOUT IT :):):).

But wich Plan ,do we choose : Ning Plus ($200) or Ning Pro ($500).
--- If Ning Pro ,I pay $300 myself and for the rest You guys could help.
--- If Ning Plus ,I pay for it All myself. ...Definitely.


Ning Plus
The tools and features you need to build and grow a branded social network with high engagement – an incredible value at a great price ...$19.95/month
or $199.95/year* (save 16%) - Full feature set including events, groups, chat, pages and Ning AppsHelp Center support
..............................................................................Help Center support

Ning Pro
The ideal solution for building a comprehensive social experience, including additional features, integration, support and bandwidth
$49.95/month
or $499.95/year* (save 17%) - Full feature set plus video and music uploads and branded players
..............................................................................Premium support