Ok, I know it’s a tenuous link – but I’m not the only one who instantly thought of Monty Python when I heard about Ning!
I have to say, that I hadn’t come across Ning until Scoble interviewed Marc Andreessen (of Netscape fame) and Gina Bianchini recently, and also filmed Gina giving a demo of the site.
Now I have to say, some of the time with these new web offerings I tend to have the “it’s cool but…” attitude – I can see that it is a nice idea, or a good concept, but often there isn’t enough to get me to switch from the way I am currently doing things, or whatever the site is doing doesn’t really appeal. However watching the video about version 2.0 of Ning was definitely one of those light bulb moments!
I’ve discussed before the concerns about the rise of Social Networking sites such as MySpace and Bebo, particularly with regards to the Child Protection issues. For example with the Church website we have strict rules over getting permission to use pictures of anyone under 18, and even then we can’t directly identify them, but then for many of the young people, all it takes is a few minutes on MySpace and Bebo and you can get really quite detailed information about them that they have quite happily posted for the whole internet to see. However, trying to control access to the sites, whether this be through an age limit (which doesn’t even need a fake ID to get around), or through site blocking, as both schools and parents have tried to do, really doesn’t address the issue – young people want to socialise, and doing so online is just a natural extension of what they do face to face. Unfortunately many of them will regard the age limits, or site blocks as an unnecessary restriction, without really realising the serious consequences and dangers implicit on what they post to the sites.
That leaves you with trying to find a way to facilitate this socialising online, so I know of people who have tried closed blog sites, discussion forums and so on, however all of that requires some degree of technical know how, so many have just signed up to MySpace and Bebo to keep an eye on their young people. However, Ning seems to address this issue straight on. Marc Andreessen mentions Churches several times in the video, however in terms of our congregation, where for many the level of technical literacy is relatively low, I’d suggest it would probably end up being an exclusive tool rather than an inclusive tool. However in addressing the issues with MySpace, Bebo and Child Protection it does seem an excellent solution. It makes it really easy to set up a Social Networking site for a Youth Group, whilst giving you the tools to control both access, and what is posted. In this way you can allow your group to share pictures and videos – the kind of things that would never get past the Child Protection policy for a fully public site, and to control access to the members of the group. It’s all fully customisable, but for the basic sites it is drag-and-drop simplicity, so you don’t need to be technical to get a basic site up and running. It will also allow members of the group to personalise their own pages too.
The main issues would be though, that it probably doesn’t have the street-cred of MySpace and Bebo, and also that by limiting access it wouldn’t be as straightforward to include the wider networks that some of the young people have on the major sites, however as an online place to extend the social aspects of a Youth Group it does seem ideal. Certainly, it does seem well worth checking out.
This first video is the interview, which is quite long and in places technical, but also includes some good comments about the rise of Social Networking, and the Internet as a whole – there is also an interesting discussion about which sites attract which age groups:
The second video is a lot shorter, and is basically an introduction to the features of Ning:
Alongside this, both TechCrunch and GigaOM have loads more detail in their reviews of the new version of the site.
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