Alternatives to Ning

I have created a survey form at the following available at the following web address

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dExGTjhLZUk3YmtGQlE1c1pVSklfZ0E6MQ

A shorter version of the same web address http://bit.ly/a0fAox

the idea is to narrow down on the choices and come up with something that is close to Ning in functionality.

Surveys are never a perfect instrument but they help in narrowing down the choices and focusing on the problem. I have kept it short so please take few minutes to complete it. I will share the final answer here.

5/19/10 As of today I have received five responses to the survey and 27 people have seen it. Here is the spreadsheet showing the responses to the survey

Ning Alternative Survey http://bit.ly/dApbaA

Those of you who have seen the survey please fill it out. It is short so it will not take more than few minutes and please pass it out to the others who you think will be  interested in transitioning from Ning and are looking for alternatives.

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It was announced earlier that “Ning is discontinuing their free product”. So, I thought that we could collaboratively create a document describing some hosted and self-hosted alternatives to Ning. Perhaps this document could also describe steps and tools for people who have never self-hosted applications.

Hey – this was just posted to creators.ning.com by John McDonald.

Reply by John McDonald 25 minutes ago

Hi,Hav

Thank you for all of your kind words for the Ning employees that were let go as part of this change. I also appreciate all of your comments, opinions and questions about the announcement. We will share detailed plans within 2 weeks.

I want to address one particular co

Posted by Jason Rosenthal – CEO of Ning
Hi Everyone,
Concerns several of you have voiced about the impact of this change to educators using Ning Networks. We remain committed to this important group of Network Creators, and we understand your unique needs. We plan to address your concerns in our upcoming plan.

As many of you know, we made a decision yesterday to focus 100% of the company on enhancing the features and services we offer to paying Ning Creators. The tens of thousands of you who already use our paid service represent over 75% of our traffic, and we’ve heard repeatedly from you ways that we can deliver a killer   service to help make your Ning Network more effective. Some examples of things we are working on that you’ve asked for include new APIs, a new mobile experience and new advertising and revenue opportunities.

Useful to note: Folks have the option to use their own hosted service, as opposed to a ning.  This is a paid, “premium” service that costs $10 a month. It is unclear whether costs this low will “count” as premium users.  We’re not yet 100% certain what the options for educators may be.  (Anyone good at adding in a table of contents to something like this?)
I think all Ning paying customers count as premium,

From the techcrunch post:

“While the email (from ning) 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 ability to hide any trace that you’re running on Ning ($25 a month).”

Petition: Keep Ning Free for Nonprofit and Educational Use

If you’d like to add your voice to the growing list of people urging Ning to keep it’s free service available for nonprofit and educational use, please take a moment to sign the Change.org petition at http://bit.ly/dw7HSN .  Let your friends & colleagues know through twitter, facebook, email, etc.

Backing Up Ning Members

Ning managers can download member data from their existing Nings. Directions here.

Some of these services below can import your downloaded CSV file so that all is not lost if you lose your Ning network.  Directions for Buddypress here. Ning to BuddyPress blog,Plugin & directions for ELGG here

Note that importing people’s information into another service without their express permission is generally considered rage-inducing by said users.

http://www.savemyning.com/

Wild Apricot post on backing up content

Don’t know reliability of this, but mentioned on Ning Get Satisfaction - for exporting data from Ning – http://www.socialcoderz.com/faq.php not cheap though ($250+)

The DIY way of backing up is to execute

wget –mirror –convert-links –html-extension http://MYNINGNAME.ning.com

on any Linux/Unix/Mac machine on the command line, replacing MYNINGNAME with the correct prefix. You’ll get a nice browsable offline copy of your Ning’s openly accessible content, which you can put online at any place where you can host normal html files.

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If you are not into UNix you can try  HTtrack http://www.httrack.com/ It downloads the websites with specified URL and assigned depth while preserving the structure of website. More for archiving purpose than to get back to the original web site.

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rrripple.com is an online platform that empowers users to chronicle, curate and share their digital social lives, while providing complete control over who sees what.  You can hear from teachers who are already using rrripple at this YouTube link.  Here’s a snapshot of its nice user interface for group sharing:

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Hosted Alternatives

Comparison of Ning and Big Tent Features

• //?// anybody know much about customizing bigtent’s look? after ning, BT seems clunky, but i just haven’t gotten to know it yet.

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- http://www.edmodo.com Edmodo is a social networking site that is a cross between Facebook & Twitter that offers File uploads, assignments,  and is completely free and private @zemote & @nicborg developed.  Like the mobile potential…also it has a gradebook!

• There’s going to be (or is?) an app for that.  << There is http://www.edmodo.com/m  We are currently developing a native app for the iphone.
• There is a paid version.  <<  Currently we only have a free version, but we are going to be launching an institutional branded version the near future.

Zonkk.com – Zonkk is an online social network creator based on Elgg. It is free to join and create a network and comes with loads of applications and options. With Zonkk you have total control over your site and can also subscribe to paid upgrades if you wish.

-http://www.bigtent.com/ BigTent offers a free platform to support community groups. Lots of features — forums, subgroups, event payments & RSVP, announcements, file sharing, membership management & payment collection. Video tour here: http://bit.ly/a9xWOH

Comparison of Ning and Big Tent Features

• //?// anybody know much about customizing bigtent’s look? after ning, BT seems clunky, but i just haven’t gotten to know it yet.

- http://elgg.org / http://elgg.com (hosted & non hosted) Elgg is a popular open source social engine platform available offered under GNU GPL V2. It offers a comprehensive toolkit of standard social network functions, as well You can download and run your own network for free, and with effect from May, a hosted SaaS version will be offered for non-technical users for a modest monthly cost, with a range of premium service options available, including “multi-site” network-of-networks capabilities with single sign-on and content federation. Central to elgg’s model is data portability and transparency about service options. Irrespective of whether you use the hosted SaaS or elect to run your own, the data is exportable and portable so you can migrate from the SaaS to your own shared host, dedicate host or cloud-based deployment and avoid any lock-in to the hosted service or any other provider. Network operators always own their data. The platform includes comprehensive RSS support and content access control capabilities. With a development community of over 22,000 members, there are a wide range of parties (freelance, commercial capable of providing support, development and customisation as well as an active “self-help” community. The company behind the creation of Elgg provides consultancy, design development and best practice services. Elgg allows you to extend its capabilities via modular plug-ins, and there are range of community plug-ins and themes available. Elgg has a substantial user-base amongst educational institutions, government bodies, companies and NGOs, including MIT, Harvard, United Nations, World Bank, UNESCO, Wiley Academic Publishing, Hill & Knowlton, MITRE, Govt Of Canada,  State of Ohio School District, Govt of Australia, as well as thousands of niche communities.

- http://www.edu20.org/ EDU 2.0
“EDU 2.0 is a free, web-hosted learning management system that allows anyone to create an online school in minutes. It’s easy to use, comprehensive, and can be accessed from any web browser”.
@stylianosm2 : Seems interesting, haven’t tried it myself.
@carlosfonce
And also has mobile version! (designed to iphone, but works in other OS, I have tried it on symbian and ok)
Not free according to their web site (”less than $1/student)
@carlosfonce
for companies such http://edu20.com ($ 1 dollar per student)
Schools http:/ /edu20.org (free)

- http://www.mixxt.net- I have used this one. Not bad. Communication with development team is great… but still a bit hard to navigate and still some problems with translation. À
@getoliverleon: Translation should be much improved, if not flawless by now. is RTL an option?

Functions include:
forums, groups (with sub-forum and images), images, events, files, news, blogs (one main blog or for every user), videos, wikis, polls, shoutbox … only hosted. Very good performance.

• full event system with RSVP, automatic waiting lists, Ticket-Shop integration (Amiando)
• add images & files anywhere (forum, blog, news, cms, event descriptions etc.)
• collaborative image albums, let all members add images into one album
• integrates your favorite video portal (Youtube, Vimeo etc.)
• very powerful groups with sub-forum and images
• separate access controls for every module
• closed forums, group mailings
• flexible activity streams, including shouts, filters, admin controls etc.
• very protective terms of service as well as privacy policy
• every element has its own CSS identifier, so you can modify the layout heavily, even in the free version
• @getoliverleon is one of the founders, support also via Twitter: @mixxt
• Enterprise solutions available, mainly White Label and Community Universes (one seperate for every branch, class, group, department; one login for all)

-http://grou.ps/ I have just seen this through Twitter several times today–I haven’ vetted it yet though. Are we looking for free options/ Are all the ones that are listed below free? Looking for an environmen22t that will allow leaders (school and district) to create an e-learning community to focus on the essentials of building community (Group.ps is supposed to be open source but I have yet to find the source code. Also, there is no way to delete your account) <- I have found this link: http://grou.ps/group_deactivate.php It should work

• I established a grou.ps to explore it as a replacement for the Ning group my fourth and fifth graders are using right now. It seemed promising to me and very Ning-like. I explored the Google gadgets I could add on (looking for a Twitter gadget to feed the class twitter account), almost immediately I began stumbling across male and female erotica. Something of a concern. I am not sure if these gadgets are accessible to members, or simply the manager of the site. The point may be moot. I have a nine year old shadow-uber-geek who created his own group and showed it to me today. How disappointing.
• I tweeted this concern on 4/18 & got this response:
  • @klbz thanks for letting me know. we have a contextual ad system; so this type of ads show only on adult sites. never on education sites.
  • @klbz does it sound good enough, or would the education community prefer a different solution? your niche is very important for us.
  • @klbz feel free to shoot me an email from emre@groups-inc.com – cheers,

>>> I ‘ve just tried grou.ps and found it very promising .It’s  similar to ning with some additional features such as creating a wiki and adding new modules and pages in addition to the possibility to transfer the list of members from ning to grou.ps . I personally vote for it

>>> It is still a beta.  Does anyone know their future plans?

>>> I was overall impressed with grou.ps, but found it was missing the following key features:

1) Ability to have forums within sub-groups

2) Ability to upload images (not from url) to wall posts, forums posts, etc.

3) Ability for users to add photos/albums to their own profiles, not just to

a common photo pool.

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Use of Google Wave as a Possible alternative for Ning-

Need to spend more time with Wave, but might have the potential to for broader collaboration? I have tried it and it is good but needs lots of work. Interesting to try and it has many tools including real time collaboration though that is a bit buggy the last time I tried.
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I  used Wave in my online class for a few discussion sessions and it has potential . . . but i don’t see it replacing NING and filling in the various functions/features that Ning offers. @seanjcl
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I just completed teaching a course on Computing tools in which I covered many software tools including tools for communication and collaborations such as Google docs and Google Wave.

I did a survey for all the tools. Here is the part where students wrote about their experience with the Wave. The Google spreadsheet contains the summary at the end

Survey Results for Google wave as a Tool for Communication & Collaboration
http://bit.ly/d2zUD4

Overall their experience was positive with the wave and wave received a rating of 4.05 and 65 percent said that they will use the Wave again.

I also created a Wave here listing “Good and Bad” of Google Wave

http://bit.ly/csBopK

Google just announced at their developers conference that Google wave is open now according to this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byteG2jIa-A

No wait time to get an invitation. Just go here http://bit.ly/6TxNpn and sign up

They are also using Google wave as a demonstration to show live discussion at their developer’s conference at this wave that is like table of content for all other waves

Google I/O Main Wave http://bit.ly/98uUcc

I think something like this can be adapted within teaching and learning.

Also for the time being it is totally free with no restrictions on much it is being used. It is hosted on Google infrastructure.

All the software is open source and free including the Google Wave XMPP server. We are free to run our own instance of the Wave if needed and federate with others XMPP server running the wave.
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http://www.wiserearth.org/article/WiserEarthGroups

A free online community space where people working on an issue can come together. Each group is offered a unique workspace where members can connect, post discussions, share resources and collaborate on projects. WiserEarth groups are already in use by more than 1,000 ‘communities of action’.

WiserEarth Groups:

• are free to use and free of advertisements
• have similar tools to Yahoo!/Google Groups and Ning Networks
• are part of the bigger picture (WiserEarth is a community of communities working on various issues related to social justice and environmental stewardship)

Features:

• Social networking (member profiles, private messaging, friend feed)
• Discussion forum and chat box
• Easy-to-use wiki pages (no wiki syntax, word-processor-like editing interface, photo/video embeds, custom HTML formatting possible)
• Modules to list events, resources, jobs, solutions, organizations.
• File library
• Search engine
• Map view of every geo-tagged content on the group (people, organizations, jobs, events)
• Network visualizer (got to see it yourself).
• Group message blast (think e-newsletter)
• Email and on-site alerts of group activities
• RSS feeds reader (import multiple RSS feeds) and RSS feed out (from search results)
• Integrates with your main website using iFrame or API
• Easy to set up and customize (drag and drop)
• Easy to interact with content and membership of other groups (think of your group as part of an ecosystem of loosely-related groups)
• Various privacy (public, semi-private, private) and membership settings (open, open to apply, member referral, invitation only)

For more info, screenshots and examples, go to
http://www.wiserearth.olrg/article/wiserearthgroups
Use http://bit.ly/wegroups for your tweets.

If you have any question or need any help, contact Bowo (bowo) at bowo@wiserearth.org
More about WiserEarth at http://www.wiserearth.org/article/About

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- http://scope.bccampus.ca
If you want a SIG space in SCoPE (Moodle). It must be education related, and not intended for formal courses, etc.

- http://www.ilonio.com – Easy to use and Ning migrating enabled, works on WordPress MU
offers free promotion for blogs and social media power user friendly.

- http://www.drupalgardens.com/ – hosted Drupal 7, currently in beta testing
I tested out Drupal Gardens and it was not working properly. Plus, once I did manage to get it up and running, I found it hard to figure out what I could do next. Hopefully when it comes out of beta it will be better.

http://wackwall.com/ – WackWall is a free tool for creating custom social networks with easy setup and complete feature set.
Your project may have your own unique needs but if you need advanced community features that are dead easy to use – welcome here!
With WackWall you can start:

• Social network
• Photo/Video sharing site
• Dating site
• Education project
• Customer community
• Collaboration system
• Fan club
• Family site
• … and virtually anything else.

WackWall is based on open source community software which means FREEDOM for you.

Goofy name, though WackWall looks promising!  (@MysticalSadhu)
Supports customization for RTL and translation of interface (@susant)

- - IGLOO Software: Free social networking platform. BizCATS, an independent organization that conducts technology product reviews for SMBs, reviewed IGLOO’s free online community offering just yesterday and deemed it the “slickest product out there.” As a test, one of the principals at BizCATS rebuilt their entire website using the corporate solution template, remarking that the project took less than a morning to learn and master. Gives groups, teams and organizations of any size the ability to create a public or private online community. Start from scratch or get a head start with preconfigured templates for eLearning, corporate website, intranet / team room, partner portal, customer support portal & research community.

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Shout’Em is another potential alternative, although I have not tested it very thoroughly; essentially a closed social network @skipvia  supports translation, utf-8 and RTL

Have been meaning to try SocialGO (http://www.socialgo.com/); maybe this will give me the impetus @skipvia  Supports translation, utf-8 but not full RTL directionality

Some good links here: http://dzineblog.com/2010/03/top-10-open-source-platforms-that-allow-you-to-build-your-own-social-network.html (@skipvia)

Schoology is a “social course management” site.  I haven’t used it.  Anyone?
I think Schoology is built on the open source CMS, Drupal. The developers have configured it to look and act a lot like Facebook. It is mainly geared towards classroom teachers setting up individual class spaces, but I believe they also offer a district license option. I will be using it in the 2010-2011 school year with a group from the Cleveland Catholic Diocese Office of Catholic Education.
@stringd Giving this a shot for Fall 2010. Wish it had video upload; will rely on YT and vimeo for that.
Saywire is another social course management  tool. I have just signed on with a test school account.  Saywire has a SayWall, groups, calenders, personal blogs, a message board, a whiteboard, meetign rooms and RSS feeds to monitor the group activity,  and other features that are similar to Ning. It also handles various media types, although I have not yet fully tested all of this. discussion forums, but also drop boxes for students to submit assignments. I am also looking at Schoology as a site to use with my students or classes. Please note that Schoology is free for education whereas Saywire does have a cost.

Someone mentioned YUKU to me but I have not tried it out yet.

Yuku - http://www.yuku.com/ Promotes itself as “the” alternative to Ning, it looks and feels much like Ning, though has many more features and load capacity, much of which comes only as premium with Ning, whereas is free with Yuku.  I and others in our Ning group have joined and have begun to experiment with Yuku today.   (@MysticalSadhu)

Features: http://www.yuku.com/portal/features

Comparison and Contrast with Ning: http://www.yuku.com/portal/competition

Something tells me that with “bitchslap” being something users of Yuku can do to each other that it probably is not the right Ning alternative for education.

We Are Teachers – http://www.weareteachers.com Facebook-like social networking for teachers.  Connects with all other major social sites.  Does not seem to allow teachers to create communities outside of the regular face-book-type of connections.  But you can join a number of pre-created communities.

Geoff Cain is interested in talking to anyone about putting together non-profit, educational hosting. All of these solutions with corporations behind them risk being “Ninged” or “Blackboarded.” (If something like this already exists, please let him know because he will support it.) C

Spruz.com –  Discovered this morning, very similar to Ning, seems quite promising, learn more here: http://www.spruz.com/?page=info (@MysticalSadhu)
* For one thing, they have agressive advertising.

Drupal + CiviCRM is a powerful alternative to build communities for collaborative work. Suitable for NGOs. Setup may be complex, but is getting better. See the manual at: http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm

Joomla + CiviCRM See comments for Drupal + CiviCRM.

Joomla + Community Builder is a very flexible and attractive alternative for NGOs networks.

Mixedink – offers a way to connect, collaborate, and be heard

RCampus – a comprehensive Education Management System and a collaborative learning environment that also offers eCommunities (worth taking a look at)

Moodle – Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning and collaberation sites.

SocialGo from http://www.brightthings.com/ has the look and feel of Ning and according to https://signup.socialgo.com/plans it is “Free forever”.

http://camarote.posterous.com/5-alternativas-a-ning

Compare Hosted Platforms:
I have taken many of these hosted options and started a table of features: http://docs.google.com/View?docID=0AXKnPEf6zXgyZGY2dzJmNWtfMTE1ZGt0M2pqZGg&revision=_latest

Robin Good and I have built up a big list of social networking platforms that work as alternatives to Ning. Each platform has a mini-review highlighting main features and pros and all platforms are compared using standard criteria – Daniele Bazzano http://www.masternewmedia.org/ning-alternatives-guide-to-the-best-social-networking-platforms-and-online-group-services/

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Self-Hosted Alternatives:

- We used phpbb for four years before converting to Ning. Users loved the bulletin board and have not taken to Ning over last two years. Ning has never effectively dealt with spammers and spam member registrations. Our education non-profit will explore a downgrade to a solution like vbulletin.

See also @c4lpt & http://janeknight.typepad.com/socialmedia/2010/04/from-ning-to-elgg.html

- http://mahara.org - Open Source ePortfolio and Social Networking system. Plays nice with
Moodle (and Google Apps). (@jaydblackman) supports languages and rtlFitz-Walshhris  @f

- http://drupal.org/ – and various flavors like Drupal Acquia, Drupal Gardens (in beta, requires signup code, “free at all levels through end of 2010”), eduglu, social media classroom, Open Atrium.  Drupal supports languages and RTL (i use Drupal in my of my online classes, but the learning curve is not easy — at least by Ning standards – @seanjcl). A great resource for those interested in Drupal is a book written by @funnymonkey called “Drupal for Education and E-Learning”

- http://gnoss.com/comunidades – GNOSS
Linked data web and Open data project with semantic technology. It enables free public and private communities. This project offers alternatives to teachers, students… http://gnoss.com/en/about-gnoss/9

It resources connects with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They have an interesting project of collective thinking, called SWOT online

- http://sharetronix.com – Sharetronix Open Source Microblogging Community Software powering communities in 120 countries. It has over 20 available languages at the moment. Supports Facebook Connect, Twitter and Google Buzz integration and sharing. Has very cool smart Phone UI support. Sharetronix supports groups, multimedia files, user profiles; video, pictures, files, URL’s and a lot more.

- http://www.socialengine.net/ A full-featured, self-hosted alternative, with an active plug-in after market. Releasing version 4 in beta soon. Seems pretty robust. Will be offering a Ning importer shortly. Currently offering a $50 discount to former Ning customers – use the discount code: “ningmigrate”

- http://crabgrass.riseup.net/demo/
Crisis Commons have been using Crabgrass recently

If you have the programming skills you could use PHPizabi to create an online community

http://vivalogo.com/vl-resources/open-source-social-networking-software.htm
via:
http://friendfeed.com/dougdaulton/c871da89/iodine74-here-is-list-of-open-source-ning

Do we think that Moodle 2.0 might allow for many of the same capabilities of Ning?

-The issue I see with Moodle as alternative is that it needs to be set up (more technical) -so while it will work for some- not for all.

-http://Groupsites.com Used to be CollectiveX

-Blackboard (j/k)–funny:))–always nice to have a sense of humor.

-Facebook groups?  – still worried about the signal/noise ratio here.

A little outdated, but also via techcrunch “34 More Ways to Build Your Own Social Network”

http://tcrn.ch/anh8oC

-Google Apps Provides groups, sites, gmail, calendar, docs and soon wave through a central dashboard and allows admins to control accounts over all sites

UNTESTED:
http://www.jomsocial.com/ Social Network on Joomla
http://www.qobble.com/
http://onlinegroups.net
http://www.spruz.com
http://www.peopleaggregator.net/

Moonfruit and DoodleKit are both hosted content management systems that offer a free package. They also have some interactive tools, though probably nothing as robust as those found in other resources.

Mindz an innovative dutch social networking site, they have a profile importing feature, they’re working on content imports:
http://www.mindz.com/blogs/2010/5/7/Je_huis_kwijt_op_NING__MINDZ_com_helpt_je_graag_met_het_bouwen_van_een_nieuw_huis_

Free Self-Hosting Options

Top Cities will let you install Joomla, WordPress, PhpBB, Elgg, Moodle, and others and host them for free. You get 300 MB of disk storage, and 500MB of bandwidth per month. Upgrade plans are also available when you outgrow those limits.

Once all of the possible alternatives are listed it seems the next step should be to create a comparison chart to compare features.  Further a pros and cons summary could be provided for each alternative.  Then groups would be able to decide the best alternative for them.  Another solution might be for the group to make a recommendation of the best replacement product.  If a large following chooses the same alternative the numbers would hopefully  drive support and product development.

Additionally, the communities could better support each other and it would be easier to join multiple networks.  One note on our own behalf.  We are an educational non-profit group promoting technology for special education.  If a decision is made to continue to support the educational community Nings for free we hope that educational non-profits are included.

What about LearnCentral?

Alternative Network for Best Practices could be:
LEARNCENTRAL at http://www.learncentral.org/

Really great international focused educational network of many associated groups – create a group in there and you’d get your members flocking in – if only to just get their own FREE Elluminate V room.

Why we care about Ning as a classroom/ staff development tool:

• Ning is not a learning management system, it’s a collaboration tool. It’s much more effective in supporting the acquisition of 21st century skills than the traditional LMS or VLEs.
• It’s a great middle-ground between institutional VLE (with limited options for student contribution) and Facebook (more personal, risk of invading student personal space).
• The discussion forum is top notch.  In fact, the capability to reply to a post with virtually any embedded media via code is unprecedented from what I have seen.  Threads can rather nicely show conceptual change in a student’s thought over time.
• The ability to have separate groups with forums associated in them (special interest groups, or weekly lessons)
• Frankly, the site actually feels rather un-”schooly” — though this is largely a matter of how you massage the environment (much like a classroom).  In other words, it is a site where students feel comfortable spending time.
• As a Ning Manager, it’s easy for people to self-serve and sign up for different groups. This has a great impact on students’ ownership of learning, commitment and motivation.
• You can easily create a site that both has publicly viewable and private content.
• It’s great for collaboration (professional/staff development?). . . not just for classrooms!  I love the WV Principals Network!
• It’s great as a student/alumni connection – sharing the knowledge in and out of the classroom
• Nings like Edu PLN, Ted21c, Classroom 2.0 closes leadership gaps and build capacity to learn with others, a  place to collaborate and share and connect. Edu PLN has have 100,000 members
• Being openly hosted…  I never lose my students.  They graduate the physical plant of our school, but they remain with my networks.  They stop in from time to time to interact with current students after they have moved on.  This has huge potential for assembling a body of accessible and authentic “expert” voices.
• I appreciate the smooth integration of other applications into Ning.  It is very user-friendly for members not familiar with such tools.  It has been a great tool to use with students, parents, and other educators.  Hoping the company will consider a plan for the education market.
• Nings are a great way to show parents and communities that social networking is not “bad” or “dangerous” and help teach students good digital citizenship in a safe and manageable environment.
• My HS students love the ning because it feels like facebook and myspace, it’s “poppin” as they would say. It allows them to showcase their own music, images and videos. It helps create a caring culture in the classroom because students see the personal side of their peers that they might not see otherwise.
• recently created student 2.0 and new school – global ning sites allowing students to drive their own learning… dang. hope free for ed doesn’t end.
• I created a Ning space for my school’s community in 2007. Our students loved the possibility of owning a blog in a safe space. Last year when we had to close school because of the Swine flu the Ning space provided the chance to continue working from home, we received ever 4000 visits in less than two weeks
• I created a Ning for the 4th grade teachers in my school district and one for my school. I belong to 45 Nings where I collaborate and learn with other innovative educators.

**Maybe we should send a collaborative letter to Ning to pursue a free education option (I think we are).

TEXT OF POTENTIAL COVER LETTER to Ning on behalf of the education community
(add your own thoughts/language/etc. in the space below) =>
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Should Ning not offer to continue hosting sites for educational purposes, will they consider some type of export tool to export members and content to other sites?

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By the way, there’s an AERA 2010 paper about using Ning in education by @bethanyvsmith and others: “The Use of Alternative Social Networking Sites in Higher Educational Settings: A Case Study of the E-Learning Benefits of Ning in Education”

NING was also just mentioned in the k12 2010 Horizon report on Collaborative Technologies
http://tinyurl.com/y7rod43

Ning is the internal development space for the Blind and Low Vision Education Network, NZ. As we are a national school with teachers spread across the country, we use this space to collaboratively evaluate practice by looking at videos of students learning and teachers practicing their craft. It is becoming the thread that weaves conversations and thinking together.

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wikispaces have a good model of offering free (completely ad Free) wikis for educational use, ad supported free accounts and premium featured accounts. They seem to do OK. Perhaps the model of “free to education” then the students remember you when they graduate is a good model http://www.wikispaces.com

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At one time Ning  was the only SAAS social networking platform that could be easily translated to UTF-8 languages and adapted for RTL (right to left text directionality:  Hebrew, Arabic, Urdu, Parsi). It became, in 2007, the home to  the first Social Network for Israeli Educators interested in technology in education.   For many educators in Israel Ning based ‘Edureshet’  was, and is,  the entry point to the world of web2.0 in education, a place to meet, share and collaborate with other educators in our own language.  The availability of the translation files has facilitated the setup of many more Hebrew language educational networks.

Document Simplification
What is the best way to boil this down to the best 3 alternatives that are actually being used in ed?  Survey?  Google Spreadsheet? @geoparadigm

• YES, would love to see a table/spreadsheet with elements/features/affordances down the left column, and tools along the top, with X marking which tool supports which feature.
• Survey would be great
• We are interested in participating if someone has the will to set this up in something like Doodle http://www.doodle.com – Renaissance2 http://r2meshwork.ning.com

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I think we need a platform similar to Ning that serve as a container to the Gadgets similar to what we have in Smart phones where user can customize   their computing environment by adding different applications. Ning was moving in that direction by supporting open social gadget development environment supported by Google as open standard. IGoogle supports that as well netvibes including  Google Wave.

The list of software tools above is large and if one start testing it for a NING replacement it will take forever. Ning is very comprehensive in its functionality and most of the programs listed above will not even close to matching those features

I have narrowed it down to really two based upon the functionality and put them in a table below:

Program	Digital Content Creation	Social networking	User Management
Ning	Ning allows many ways to create and integrate digital content	Ning allows member pages and has built in social networking features	Ning allows management of network through administrative console
Edu2.0
Elgg

I have very limited experience with EDU2.0 To me it is more geared towards being a LMS rather than a social network. I have no experience with ElGG but it is an open source social networking tool and it has been used in research by I think Dr. Terry Anderson.

I would like to find an alternative to NING but obviously most of the program listed above will not fit the bill. Therefore, if some one has experience in using the above program or some other program that offers or claims to offer the same functionality please add that to the table above.

Blogging, wiki, quiz and other software listed above are useful tools but lack the comprehensiveness of the tool I have listed in the table above.