Ning Asserts Itself - Will Users Suffer?

By Daniel J. Pritchett on August 24th, 2008

Tech news tracker TechCrunch is tracking an important developing story on social networking platform Ning (think standalone Facebook groups) and their ongoing troubles with their most popular developer of paid applications. Third-party Ning widget developer WidgetLaboratory has just open-sourced all of their widgets, effectively giving them away for any determined user to add to Ning free of charge. Read on to learn why WidgetLaboratory decided to give away their products.

UPDATED 8/24: WidgetLaboratory is now releasing email records of their ongoing arguments with Ning. Check this next post on Sharing at Work for more details.

Why are Ning and WidgetLaboratory fighting?
Yesterday Ning shut down access to all WidgetLaboratory add-ons without giving advance notice to end users. These users were apparently paying $30/mo. to WL for the service and now they’re out of luck. Ning’s official reason for the termination is a violation of the “network degradation” clause in the Ning TOS but TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid posits that Ning may have used a flimsy justification to close out WidgetLaboratory because WL’s profitability interfered with Ning’s own premium service plans. Obviously a free site like Ning is going to be looking for any edge it can get to remain profitable, and it’s possible they’d rather fold WL’s widget features into their premium packages.

Ning and WidgetLaboratory have squared off and released statements that are clearly at odds with each other: WL claims they got no advance warning and that Ning is merely afraid of their profitability, while Ning insists that WL was given repeated warnings and that no further statements will be forthcoming due to internal Ning policy.

Why this is an important case for the Social Media market
Open add-on platforms like Ning’s are par for the course at Web 2.0 companies. Unfortunately, Ning’s authoritarian handling of the WidgetLaboratory case isn’t all that uncommon either. While Ning may well have had a valid reason for terminating WL’s access, they clearly flubbed the communication with their end users. With media darling Facebook’s rapidly expanding application platform being hailed as the web’s next operating system we as users and contributors to these resources need to know what we can and can’t count on in terms of communication and reliability from these services.

Ning more than likely has the right to terminate any user or widget contributor out of hand without much justification. Facebook’s TOS undoubtedly gives them similar powers. While the value and visibility of these mashup services continues to grow, we must stay on the alert to make sure that we do not find ourselves irrevocably committed to a platform that is powerful enough to disregard our needs and mistreat us without proper planning and communication. Please, feel free to embrace Facebook, Ning, and every other Web 2.0 tool at your disposal - but be sure you know where you stand with your providers. Be sure to have an exit strategy because the terms you work under can and will change without warning.

© 2008 Daniel J. Pritchett & sharingatwork.com

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Viewing 2 Comments

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    Nice read. This is an interesting issue. Still worlds of precedents to be set in these evolving spaces.

    In the DIY Social Network space, Ning has become the defacto 'do-better-than' reference not because it's great, but moreso because of their users lack of engagement (attributed to features and interface).

    I would imaging that Widget Labs feels more of an opportunity they took with their direction than maintaining an allegiance to Ning. The fine print and available legal resources available lead me to think a settlement would result.

    I look forward to seeing how this pans out.
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    I'm with you on WL's new business plan. They must've seen the writing on the wall a good month ago and now they're raising their profile in the media before heading on to their next big adventure.

    I like the idea of using Ning communities over Facebook groups just because they're not a part of a walled garden but it's now clear that *any* choice of social network provider is going to come with its own unique risks and rewards.

    Let's not let this story dissuade us from taking advantage of the social media smorgasbord before us though, it's just too useful to watch it pass us by.
 

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