Comments on: Ning!

Ning!

stavrosthewonderchicken — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 06:16:28 -0800

Ning is a very cool thing. 'Sign up. Build new social apps. Use new social apps.' [via Torrez]

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 06:31:27 -0800

What a great idea. Shame you have to wait some unspecified time before you can get stuck in making things:

As for Beta Developer account status, we are adding accounts on a "first come, first served" basis and will try to fill your request as quickly as possible. We are throttling the number of Beta Developers right now in order to balance the load on the Ning Playground and ensure a great experience for everyone, so it might be a bit.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 06:44:38 -0800

Oooo! This could be fun. Thanks, chook.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 07:08:50 -0800

Their "how much do I rock" requires you to sign up to vote. Oh well, an intresting idea, I guess.

By: waxpancake

waxpancake — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 07:24:27 -0800

Blisteringly cool. Just as in Second Life, only a minority of the userbase will actually have the programming ability to make brand new stuff, but once a site is made, anyone can clone and customize the applications with no geeky know-how. But in Second Life, developers have a built-in financial incentive to create beyond just improving their reputation. Once Ning adds contextual advertising and some sort of revenue sharing, this thing will absolutely explode with activity. My biggest concerns, if I were them, would be both scalability and abuse. It's hard enough dealing with the growing pains of being either Metafilter, Flickr, or Del.icio.us... Imagine being all of them at once, and every clone to boot. As for abuse, this could be used to build all sorts of evil apps, from spamming tools to phishing websites.

By: tpl1212

tpl1212 — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 07:42:51 -0800

According to Read/Write Web, this is a product of Marc Andressen's "24-Hour Laundry" start-up... ...for what that's worth.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 08:57:01 -0800

Bugger! I signed up and now it won't let me log in. Orkut did the same thing, months ago, and I lost interest immediately. So much for another foray onto the cutting edge :-(

By: Gina Bianchini

Gina Bianchini — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 10:51:02 -0800

Flabdablet, Sorry about that. We had a little bug in the account system this morning. We should have that fixed by around 1pm PDT today. If you still can't log in, drop me an email at gina at ning.com and I'll make sure we get this taken care of. Thanks, Gina

By: waldo

waldo — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 10:52:33 -0800

Same problem here, flabdablet. I expect I'll forget about it shortly, too, as a result.

By: waxpancake

waxpancake — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 11:02:21 -0800

In the meantime, you can use the "Forgot Password" function to set your password correctly and work around the bug.

By: jonah

jonah — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 11:18:28 -0800

I did the same forget password fix, it worked fine. Cool shtuff, anyone know how long the developer approval takes? Some integration with my LA based sites would be nice.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 11:28:57 -0800

Still a bit empty, but very cool. I look forward to SF bike rides.

By: shoepal

shoepal — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 11:35:58 -0800

Interesting idea. A sort of antidote to balkanization? Though, it does seem fraught with potential problems which should prove interesting. I like the idea of waiting until someone does something interesting, hijacking their work and possibly improving it in some way or simply marketing it better. (which in a way seems very old-school microsoft embrace -> extend, etc.) Perhaps when someone copies your work and improves upon it you can declare that you have been "Ninged!"

By: nile_red

nile_red — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 11:46:49 -0800

Aw, I signed up and everything, and now when I try to log in it won't log me in : (

By: specialk420

specialk420 — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 11:49:46 -0800

nice. thanks for the post.

By: riffola

riffola — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 12:19:18 -0800

Looks cool, but I can't do anything since I've not yet been approved. I had the same password issue as others above, I reset the password and changed it back to what I wanted.

By: blag

blag — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 12:21:46 -0800

Sweet. First thing I'm building is a rip-off of Upcoming.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 13:14:10 -0800

I can't login, either. I wonder how many people this login problem happens with, and why?

By: rhapsodie

rhapsodie — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 13:33:41 -0800

I can't login, either. I wonder how many people this login problem happens with, and why? Sorry about that. We had a little bug in the account system this morning. We should have that fixed by around 1pm PDT today. If you still can't log in, drop me an email at gina at ning.com and I'll make sure we get this taken care of. posted by Gina Bianchini at 9:51 AM AKST on October 4 [!]

By: lodurr

lodurr — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 13:35:15 -0800

I can't login, either. I wonder how many people this login problem happens with, and why?

By: lodurr

lodurr — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 13:35:53 -0800

sorry for double post, opera bug in action

By: lodurr

lodurr — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 13:39:10 -0800

rhapsodie: It's nice that Gina posted that message earlier, and if we take it literally, we could assume the answer to my question was "EVERYONE". But we'd have to make an assumption to do that, mkay? And you know what happens when we "ass-u-me". Anyway, if the answer were "everyone", one would hope that the problem would be caught in acceptance testing...

By: shoepal

shoepal — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 13:42:55 -0800

I love that Gina Bianchini joined Metafilter this morning simply to perform a bit of customer service. (can we leverage this sort of "pay to respond" tactic to pad the MeFi coffers?) Someone get out the proverbial ~~pepsi~~ blue kool-aid pitcher and pour her a glass, lest her 5iver goes to waste.

By: nightchrome

nightchrome — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 18:13:22 -0800

The problem with most social apps is that the people they attract suck.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 19:23:32 -0800

I'm a bit shocked the signup is still broken. And the idea to reset the passwords isn't working for me, it's just rejecting the auto-generated one too.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 20:51:04 -0800

Very very cool. Password reset worked for me.