SO RIGHT! High Lord Mardy Pune said:

I've been watching this develop over the last couple of weeks. Apart from what's mentioned above Ning was having it's service used for the distribution of kiddie porn and that sorta sick shit at one point. I'll support Ning charging for just that reason alone, that shit is lowest sickest shit on the planet.

Some people might have noticed the 'help support the site' donate thing off to right hand side. If you can you should flick some plastic cash Kopper's way to help keep this place going. Think of it like giving a virtual pat on the back for all his hard work.

Gosh, once again I kinda don't know what to say... Nice going Ning.... even if it's not a million they want. But it looks like it can be handled. Damn, I wish had some money RIGHT NOW to donate, I will scrape together something. That's the very least my flat broke ass can do, 'cause no matter how much I come up with, I can't pay you back what the work on this site gave and keeps giving to me. Isn't there nothing that can be done? Like some bands that would play or a kegger or something to get in a bit to get together the yearly fee so there will be some savings?? Anyone? I know that's not the same thing, but when Voodoo Rythm got harrassed a while ago, folks got some shit together and made stuff happening, so... If Rock'N'Roll won't die, GARAGPUNK(.com) can have it's go a little eternity too, ha? Watcha say people?? kopper said:

Here's the UPDATE we've all been waiting for.
Honestly, those aren't bad prices. But for a network like the Hideout, and in order to maintain what we have here now, I'll have to purchase the "Ning Pro" account, otherwise no one would be able to upload video or audio files, and those two elements are pretty essential to the existence of this site, and one of the main reasons why people keep coming back. So I will have to start paying $50/month so we can keep that crucial feature. How will I pay for that? Well, beginning in July, I'm going to start charging $1 for new members. That will raise some money right there (and also help keep out the riffraff). One dollar isn't a whole lot to ask, and I don't think anyone would mind paying that to join. I don't know anyone who can't afford to pay just one dollar for something. I will also add my Google Adsense account back here so that I can get some revenue from the Google ads you see on the Hideout, as opposed to that ad revenue going directly to Ning. Plus, I will continue to solicit donations from members and sell banner ads to record labels, bands, festivals, etc. who want to advertise here. I'm hoping the combination of those three or four sources of income will cover the cost of keeping the site going. If it doesn't, and I notice that, after a few months, I'm just not pulling in the money to keep the site afloat, then I'll be forced to either A) go with the cheaper "Ning Plus" account (and thereby eliminating the ability for members to upload songs and videos), or, more likely, B) close the site entirely. I really see no other alternative. Those of you who got in under the wire and joined for free should seriously consider throwing a buck or two into the virtual hat, too. That extra money could help cover us if the ads and new member sign-ups don't cover the monthly charge.

Here's the UPDATE we've all been waiting for. Honestly, those aren't bad prices. But for a network like the Hideout, and in order to maintain what we have here now, I'll have to purchase the "Ning Pro" account, otherwise no one would be able to upload video or audio files, and those two elements are pretty essential to the existence of this site, and one of the main reasons why people keep coming back. So I will have to start paying $50/month so we can keep that crucial feature. How will I pay for that? Well, beginning in July, I'm going to start charging $1 for new members. That will raise some money right there (and also help keep out the riffraff). One dollar isn't a whole lot to ask, and I don't think anyone would mind paying that to join. I don't know anyone who can't afford to pay just one dollar for something. I will also add my Google Adsense account back here so that I can get some revenue from the Google ads you see on the Hideout, as opposed to that ad revenue going directly to Ning. Plus, I will continue to solicit donations from members and sell banner ads to record labels, bands, festivals, etc. who want to advertise here. I'm hoping the combination of those three or four sources of income will cover the cost of keeping the site going. If it doesn't, and I notice that, after a few months, I'm just not pulling in the money to keep the site afloat, then I'll be forced to either A) go with the cheaper "Ning Plus" account (and thereby eliminating the ability for members to upload songs and videos), or, more likely, B) close the site entirely. I really see no other alternative. Those of you who got in under the wire and joined for free should seriously consider throwing a buck or two into the virtual hat, too. That extra money could help cover us if the ads and new member sign-ups don't cover the monthly charge.

I've been watching this develop over the last couple of weeks. Apart from what's mentioned above Ning was having it's service used for the distribution of kiddie porn and that sorta sick shit at one point. I'll support Ning charging for just that reason alone, that shit is lowest sickest shit on the planet.

Some people might have noticed the 'help support the site' donate thing off to right hand side. If you can you should flick some plastic cash Kopper's way to help keep this place going. Think of it like giving a virtual pat on the back for all his hard work.

Don't look good .... Ning Fails at Free Social Networking By Eliot Van Buskirk April 16, 2010 | 1:58 pm | Categories: Social Media, Startups Ning co-founder Marc Andreessen promised Ning network creators they would be able to port their networks elsewhere. Now, they may have good reason to do so. Ning, a brainchild of Netscape bazillionaire Marc Andreessen that was designed to let anyone make a social network about anything for free, won’t do it anymore. Each of the service’s 2.3 million networks’ users will disappear unless its creator either pays Ning or migrate the network to another platform. So much for “free” as the future of business — as far as Ning goes, anyway. The company accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, and they apparently want more of a return than Ning is able to provide as a free service. “Our premium Ning networks like Friends or Enemies, Linkin Park, Shred or Die, Pickens Plan, and tens of thousands of others … drive 75 percent of our monthly U.S. traffic, and those network creators need and will pay for many more services and features from us,” wrote Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal in an e-mail to his 40-percent-reduced employees this week: We are going to change our strategy to devote 100 percent of our resources to building the winning product to capture this big opportunity. We will phase out our free service. Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning. The service’s premium offerings include faster access to Ning’s support staff ($10 or $100 per month, depending on responsiveness), custom domain names ($5 per month), additional storage and bandwidth ($10 per month), removal of ads with the option to embed your own ($25 per month), and getting rid of the link at the bottom of every page that asks users to create their own social networks ($25 per month). The ability to roll your own social network has a powerful allure, and Ning’s conversion into a paid-only service could open the door for a free competitor to enter the space — perhaps without accepting the $120 million or so in reported investment that almost certainly pressured Ning to try to extract more money from its users. Once again — see Tripod, Imeem, etc. — users of a web service have had the rules switched on them once they began relying on a service. That’s why it’s important to choose web services that offer an easy way to grab your stuff and split — a feature commonly known as “data portability.” Luckily for Ning users who don’t want to pay up, co-founder Andreesson has promised that the company offers easy escape routes. “We are very pro–data portability,” Andreessen told John Batelle of Federated Media back in 2008. “[Users] have lots of ways to get data in and out of the system. There is not a lot of demand for this yet, from either consumers or developers.” There will be now. The only question is … where will they go? Options include Group.ly, Grou.ps (which promises it “will always remain free”), Kickapps and the open-source Ruby-on-Rails platform insoshi. Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/ning-fails-at-free-social-networking/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29#ixzz0mLdVVx2T