In April 2010, custom social network service Ning decided that they were going to start charging and do away with their free service. Beginning August 20, Ning will charge the following for usage of their custom social network platform:
(Features included in each plan are not shown because of space.)
As you can imagine, this decision by Ning caused (and is still causing) quite a stir among users and administrators of such networks. Even if it’s only $2.95, many administrators of smaller groups are unwilling to pay for it, and many are struggling to find effective Ning alternatives, especially nonprofits and “cause” networks. There’s even a Facebook group dedicated to prevent Ning from doing so.
Well, have no fear, activists — Switzerland-based Amazee is stepping up the plate and offering FREE Ning migration service to their platform.
What is Amazee, you ask?
Though it hasn’t caught on in the United States (yet), it’s a popular custom platform for projects and reaching goals, whether it’s fundraising or non-monetary aspirations. It’s very popular in Europe, South Africa, and elsewhere in the world.
Here’s a quick video Amazee made explaining the benefits of migrating to their platform:
Welcome, Ning refugees! from Amazee on Vimeo.
From Amazee’s blog:
First of all you’ll get a lot of the features on Amazee which you’ve been accustomed to on Ning*: You’ll be able to post blog entries, upload pictures and embed videos, you’ll have your own forums for discussion, and have a good overview over who’s doing what in your group and on the platform.
Next to that we are taking your Ning experience to the max: There is no limit to the number of members a group can have (Ning only allows for 150), there are no limits on storage and bandwidth (Ning only allows you for 1GB and 10 GB respectively), you’ll be able to set up events and have people rsvp directly in your group (this is not possible at all at Ning) and you can add an unlimited number of RSS feeds and content boxes to your group (Ning has 1 and 3 respectively).
Furthermore we allow for maximum online collaboration and promotion by supporting a solid Facebook integration: You can easily recommend your group on Facebook, if you like you can even sign in to Amazee with your Facebook account. And the icing on the cake: You’ll get a reliable and competent community management on top of all that. For free, of course.
I’ve had an account at Amazee for over a year and have been (minimally) involved on this platform with a few projects in South Africa, and absolutely love the functionality of it. There are other Ning alternatives, like GroupSite and Mixxt, but personally, I don’t find the others very conducive to the needs of collaborative activism. Amazee, on the other hand, was designed for that very purpose.
So if you’ve got a cause-based community on Ning, don’t fret – head on over to Amazee and they’ll make migration easy, painless, and free.
Have you found any other good Ning alternatives? Please share in the comments below if so. Thanks!
Note: I got no form of compensation for writing this post.
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Sounds very cool. I hadn’t heard of Amazee before, but I’m definitely going to check it out now. Thanks for sharing!
No prob, Nikki. I really like the functionality of Amazee & my only regret is that I haven’t used it as much as I’ve wanted to. Hopefully that’ll change soon, as I still want to help my South African friends.
Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks so much for the post, Stacy! We are working hard on giving Amazee users a good experience and of course words like these are like butter on our breakfast toasts! And yes, we are here with open arms for all of the disappointed Ning users, the link is in the post (no need for me to overdo it here).
Glad you found this post, Mathias! When I saw your email newsletter in my inbox I was like, “I know a LOT of people who could benefit from this…” so I wrote the post. Your service is great and I hope it gets more widespread in the States.
I’ll actually be cross-posting this to another blog I write for, so there’s more exposure for ya.
Thanks for the comment!
Hey, this is an old post, but I thought I’d let you know that Amazee is no longer a “winning alternative to ning.” It is also being shut down. I wrote a post about this story, and draw some lessons from it in particular for civil society organizations looking for “free” places to host their campaigns and other stuff. I think they should be looking to open platforms (preferably run by other civil society organizations).
Link: http://www.saidia.org/2011/10/setting-us-back-while-going-forward-amazee-closes-shop-refers-members-to-facebook-and-google-for-social-change-organizing
Cheers,
Tobias