Ning

ning.com was introduced to me at the beginning of this year by Shaun Belcher; the aim of having the ’ning’ was to be able to have all of the ‘online environment’ students in one place. It wasn’t until recently that I realised just how much the ning has to offer.

“Ning empowers people to create and discover new social experiences for the most important people and interests in their lives.”

This is a statement that I found on the ning about the ning, in some ways I think that this statement is true. Having browsed the ning site it came to my attention that the site is based around social networking. Every page that I entered is constantly reminding the user to get involved with a social network be it just joining a network, however you have the options to search for a network, join as many networks as you want and even create your own network. I feel that presenting ‘networking’ as a main feature is extremely beneficial because having just written an essay on social networking I know the importance (and challenge) of being linked into a network, having the ning has immediately entered the user into a world of networking.

Even though the ning gives the users strong links into the world of networking I feel that the general settings/layouts could be a little more user friendly. When I first initially joined the ning I thought that I had created myself a ning profile page however what I did not realise was that I had only created a profile page for the social networking (OEP); when I clicked on my name in the top navigation bar it redirected me to my main page, this was not like the page that I designed. This is what I would change on the ning.

What I like about the ning is that the designers have not swamped the users with spam adverts. Facebook has rapidly expanded in the past years, this has resulted to companies buying shares into the site in order to advertise their merchandise, in my opinion I find this quite off putting; however looking at the ning now makes me wonder whether this site will end up being like facebook because as the ning gets more accepted I belief that more companies will want to invest into the site for advertising purposes; this may result to users losing interest because of such advertising.

In my opinion I belief that the ning can be a very successful site however having relative applications to other big network sites i.e. facebook, bebo, blogger etc I feel that the site is living in the shadows of these sites stated above. I intend to use the ning more frequently because I belief that I could really benefit from this site, be it entering new networks and gaining contacts or, creating my own and actually get my name out ther