Ning New Pricing Plan
July, 20, 2010
On July 19, I attended a forum held by the Elluminate! Education software,(http://www.elluminate.com), in collaboration with FutureofEducation.com and Conversation.net, where representatives from Ning and Pearson discussed the upcoming changes to Ning pricing plans (http://about.ning.com/announcement). Since 2005, Marc Andersen’s newest product, Ning, (http://www.ning.com), a form of social networking where users could create their own online communities, had been used by some educators and students to form free continuing education networks with hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of online members within each community.
As a result of financial pressure, Ning has decided to phase out its free networks and charge Ning creators depending on the size of the Ning from $2.95 a month to $49.95. Unfortunately, after July 20, the new financial costs will make it more difficult for new start up Nings to establish a community and develop under their new for profit structure. Pearson, a global leader in online and offline education, has decided to sponsor qualifying educational mini Nings in order to help some of the continuously growing Ning educational community to remain free within Ning network
Pearson will offer sponsorships to smaller mini Nings that they consider promising, and Ning offered its users possibilities for its members to cover the cost of the site through sponsorships and advertisements, unfortunately the changes will make it difficult for some of these communities to continue. Future free education communities may be forced to move to other websites such as grouply.com, rrriple.com, bigtent.com, edmodo.com, zonkk.com, and teamlab.com, among many others which continue to be free for their users. Fortunately for those that will be unable to meet the cost of hosting a Ning network, many of these alternative sites maintain some of the same elements originally found in Ning. Hopefully for Ning and many of its users, some of these communities will be able to thrive under the for-profit model.
Hoping you continue your education,
Alfonso Sintjago
Apart from my PhD studies at the University of Minnesota, I am currently taking a course with Lynda.com software on Dreamweaver as well as an OpenCourseWare class in programming by the MIT. If you have the time at home and would like to explore a subject in which you are interested at an academic level, visit the OCW consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org/) for a listing of available free courses or download a class in Itunes U. Podcasts are also an excellent alternative.
