Bright Things Share Discussion Threads

[the analyst] 21/4/2010 18:37

The other option would be to take as many of the exodus as they can over the next month or two, then cut the free option once they have them (using the porn excuse to justify it) - it might be that these customers decide that 'free' really is a dead concept and stay with SocialGO, rather than moving again in hope of finding one that will last

Yup, we do need V2 and it needs to be amazingly intuitive and bug free.

I am concerned at the slow speed at which V1 has progressed during 2010. I'm hoping it's not down to slow, lazy staff and poor programming ability, but that they are putting a lot of effort into V2 and have been swamped by concierge take-up...

[carl79] 21/4/2010 18:29

You're preaching to the choir here TA. I am all for charging but SocialGo have a claim of Free Forever - now we know forever does not mean forever but I dont think Ning's changes warrant a significant enough event for BGT to do a U turn on that claim...The porn angle could be justified - i.e. "it has come to light that a significant number of networks are exploiting the free offer and creating illegal sites (of whatever description) - We therefore have a moral obligation to protect other network owners and members of the public by ensuring we verify the identity of all network owners - this is done via a one time charge of $5 per annum ($5 to cover administration expenses - or whatever)" Only the biggest cheapskate would complain at that request - for the most part its free, BGT do require identity verification though and they charge $5 to do so...

I agree about timing - I would like to see a revised payment options structure from bgt shortly after Ning's...One thing seems clear - Ning are going after the premium space hard so we need V2 quickly - and it needs to be the dogs danglies when it hits

[the analyst] 21/4/2010 17:49

The term "Gangbusters" is usually about as good as it gets when it comes to sales. I remember Nick Robertson getting a lot of publicity for using the term in relation to ASOS' sales back in the day. Hopefully we get to hear the 'gangbusters' term used by Dom in relation to BGT one day!

I agree on the point of micropayments. I'm hoping that BGT will wait for the 4th May announcement from ning and immediately respond with their own new payment structure.

How about $1 per GB of bandwidth, up to a maximum of 10GB, after which they have to go premium to get more. Minimum $1 per month, to ensure all pay something. Seems fair to me...

[carl79] 21/4/2010 16:16

not sure what "gangbusters" means??

Well, we obviously dont want child porn or any porn for that matter being set up on SG...If it is a choice of constantly monitoring sites or charging everyone something then i vote for charging all...not a difficult decision given my position on the matter anyway...Even $0.5 per month just to keep verifying credit card details would keep undesirables off the network...£1 a month plus would likely give a good boost to revenue but at $0.5 I would assume you just cover the cost of processing payment...

[the analyst] 21/4/2010 15:09

Going to be interesting to compare those figures against SocialGO's when we get them

Also, worth noting the ning numbers from April 2009, when they said they had 12,000 premium networks (a figure that doesn't stack up against the more recent 15,000 figure and the 'gangbusters' phrase used when relating to current growth in premium users



"Ning CEO Gina Bianchini shares some user and traffic metrics with us:
About 200,000 of those 1 million social networks are active daily.
2.4 million users signed up in March, an acceleration from the roughly 2 million new user sign-ups Ning got in January and February. It has 22 million total registered users.
Ning served up 2.7 billion pageviews in March to about 70 million unique IP addresses.
About 12,000 social networks pay for Ning premium features, spending about $55 per month. (This sounds high, but ok.)
Ning is not looking to raise any money, after raising $60 million last April at a $500 million valuation. "Our investors are very happy with us," Bianchini says"

[the analyst] 21/4/2010 14:52

Just looked back and in August, Forbes reported that ning had 215,000 active networks, of 1.3m created

So, eight months later, that now stands at 300,000 and 2.3m, which tells us a bit about progress - 1m more networks and 85,000 active networks added. The drop in conversion may suggest a huge influx of spam sites

I had noted recently that socialgo were getting a huge number of spam networks being set-up. It makes me wonder that if they decide to keep the free offering whether there is some way of getting credit card details for all of the owners and stopping spam in it's tracks. That is, a way of getting credit card details without putting them off...

I suspect that the spam does cost socialgo a lot in time and resources that could otherwise be used to improve the product and customer service

[carl79] 21/4/2010 14:14

Ok, so say 280k (give or take) networks are going to be looking to migrate onto another free(ish) service?? Would that not mean Ning would drastically need to reduce headcount further...maybe a lot more networks are paying but not considered "premium"?? Seems as though they still have a large headcount challenge if they only expect to support 15,000 customers??

[uncle_bob] 20/4/2010 20:32

This current ad for a vacancy at SocialGo informs us that they have over 150000 networks.

SocialGO is looking for a new senior architect to join the team to assist in the development of the next generation of our platform. You will be joining a team of 7 to continue to develop our growing network of sites. SocialGO launched it's premium services in February 2009 and has continued to grow a strong base of users creating networks in every walk of life from politics, to sport, to the National Lottery! SocialGO has a staff of 20 and an office in San Francisco. Started in July 2007 we have over 150,000 social network using the platform today for every imaginable application.

[norbus] 20/4/2010 12:35

It is indeed; interesting webtool too .

[the analyst] 20/4/2010 12:11

Very interesting graph, wonder if there is anything to it, or whether it is just one of those anomalies that is common with these free SEO tools?

[the analyst] 20/4/2010 00:17

"According to The Wall Street Journal, premium sites represent 5 percent of Ning's network and 80 percent of its revenues.

Ning currently boasts 300,000 active networks and 46 million registered users, but those numbers are subject to change as Ning shifts solely to paid and tells users who want free services to go elsewhere"

[norbus] 19/4/2010 15:55

One thing we can rely on is that BGT will pull all the stops to get up to scratch technically so it can woo ning societies and appeal enough to induce a switch. They must set the stall if they are almost at a standard that will tempt Ningers.

[carl79] 19/4/2010 14:27

A potential indicator of the typical Ning transferee...



by On Fire for Handmade 48 mins ago
I just came over as rumor has it Ning is doing away with free accounts. I like the overall look and set up of socialgo but I don't like that you can't see the blogs. There isn't anywhere that I can see to ad blogs as a tab to your page. This is a bit different than ning and I am still learning my way around. Also would love to see a middle of the road package for those of us just starting out. There are a couple of features I would like to have but don't wish to jump to $24.99 per month..

do we need a half way house between free and premium? - we did away with it previously so maybe not but it looks like network owners may have issue if they are used to more functionality for free...

[carl79] 19/4/2010 10:53

nice spot - Hmmm, so the initial strategy may be to just get them signed up...? As you have said TA, having the new servers in place should be a blessing as you'd like to think they can grow accordingly, unlike when Ning shut down adult sites and most networks experienced lots of pain as the platform was stretched...

Ack, no point stressing over what they may or may not do - its easy to be a back seat driver, but stupid to keep piping up when you have a blindfold on so im going to try and bite my tongue now and just wait and see what they do - i am very very interested in how they handle this though - it will tell me a lot...

[carl79] 19/4/2010 10:26

Hi Norbus, SG Free is better from that standpoint but it isnt from a functionality one. I am hoping that some of the defectors realise this and in order to keep some of the functionality that Ning offers/ed for free, they decide to take up our premium offering (this is where i get my 0.5% from although yes, its a wild guess!) Clearly, if they are leaving Ning purely becasue of the potential imposing of a charge, and they are not fussed about a loss in functionality, none are going to pay anything to SG so this is why I hope BGT take a look at their free offering and make sure that there is a clear incentive to migrate up the value chain. "Give us you credit card details and try premium free for 3 months" works for me! Once the details are handed over and owners have customised their sites and hopefully seen member numbers increase, turning it all off may never happen BUT trying to convince someone that additional functionality, aesthetics etc etc will improve their network through words alone is far harder - it is why we have try before you buy all over retailing now. I know they do a month free just now but if you're transferring a large network it may take a month to get settled, never mind any network optimisation etc...

You are also correct imo that this is complex. It won't be as cut and dry as I would have wished because due to its relative infancy and smaller size, SG can probably ill afford to alienate its Free customers while it is still truing to grow - so the challenge will be, imo, trying to limit the (expected) disproportionate growth of free sites whilst not passing on the message that they are dumping the service. I think it can be achieved by statements around maintained expected service levels for premium customers so "free" functionality must be lowered but there will remain a free service etc...

The slight problem is that as TA has previously mentioned, the premium product is not fantastic - in some respects its not even acceptable - real integration into wordpress to allow full SEO for example. If you are building or have already built a large on line community, then this is obviously a must have as opposed to a "nice" feature. So, the compelling reasons to migrate up the value chain are not really there just yet - some are but we dont have a full end to end story and we'll need this if we are to successfully water down the free and try and pump up the premium - if not, the media will slate us...

As has been said before, it is all very exciting and should not be too long before we start hearing what the upshot of all this is specifically going to mean for BGT...

[norbus] 19/4/2010 09:59

I tend to think the picture is much more complex that I'd dare guess at. BGT will know exactly how best to optimise their advantage. None of us would like them to get the poisoned chalice, repeat Nings mistake to be sorted later.

GO free is better than Ning free, in that there is freedom to transfer out and no obligation to suffer adverts from anyone NIng feels like imposing on the site, usually similar or competitive.

[carl79] 19/4/2010 08:20

Interesting indicators - never even heard of Spruz! Might check them out.

Looks like a high proportion are willing to pay $5 so they may stick with Ning as Ning will apparently have an option at this level to retain custom - but a virtually equal amount say free or nothing so perhaps they'll lose around 50% of their Free networks. What do we think that number is if we only count active - 300,000, 40,0000 - less / more? If half do join SocialGo then we double our base...Given the indications on that poll (acknowledge the small sample size) then not very many are going to take up our premium offer - BUT even if half a % did we'd maintain (what I believe) to be the current premium/free ratio - I know its about growing this ratio but as previous, if BGT present a plan to do just that they'll probably gain a lot of market confidence

[the analyst] 19/4/2010 00:10

small numbers of people taking part so far, but very interesting surveys:

[the analyst] 18/4/2010 18:37

The good news is it coincided with the new socialGO servers and Iomart hosting infrastructure being put in place.

I agree, will be interesting to see sign-ups over the next few weeks as more ning network owners discover what is in store for them

[carl79] 18/4/2010 18:29

Would be interesting to have a before and after view of the number of networks created...did you say it was at 144k last week before all of this Ning stuff?

Seeing what it is like this time next month would be interesting - double the normal sign up would show how closely (or not) SG are tied into the antics of Ning. My guess is that the sign up rate should increase substantially.

It would also be interesting to see why they are leaving Ning - is it the potential costs they'll incur if they remain on that platform, is it the fact they don't trust Ning any more or a bit of both...We obviously want networks that are at least willing to consider paying a small fee to run their site so i'm hoping those jumping ship are doing so because they fear "what will Ning do next and are not afraid of parting with some cash...

Its a shame all of this has not coincided with the launch of V2 - now that would have set the cat amongst the pigeons!!

[the analyst] 18/4/2010 16:44

One early response to the news from SocialGO was to place a big banner up on the blog page, "Click Here to Create Your FREE Network Now!"

Spot the difference:

cached page from the 9th:

current page:

[the analyst] 18/4/2010 15:59

Just one typical example comment from the ning creators forum:

"Reply by Deano 3 hours ago
Sadly after three great years at Ning I have just shut down my 4 forums. I've switched over to socialgo"