Ning!

October 4, 2005 6:16 AM

Ning is a very cool thing. 'Sign up. Build new social apps. Use new social apps.' [via Torrez]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken (25 comments total)

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.

posted by jack_mo at 6:31 AM on October 4, 2005

Oooo! This could be fun. Thanks, chook.
posted by flabdablet at 6:44 AM on October 4, 2005

Their "how much do I rock" requires you to sign up to vote.

Oh well, an intresting idea, I guess.
posted by delmoi at 7:08 AM on October 4, 2005

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.
posted by waxpancake at 7:24 AM on October 4, 2005

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

...for what that's worth.
posted by tpl1212 at 7:42 AM on October 4, 2005

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 :-(
posted by flabdablet at 8:57 AM on October 4, 2005

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
posted by Gina Bianchini at 10:51 AM on October 4, 2005

Same problem here, flabdablet. I expect I'll forget about it shortly, too, as a result.
posted by waldo at 10:52 AM on October 4, 2005

In the meantime, you can use the "Forgot Password" function to set your password correctly and work around the bug.
posted by waxpancake at 11:02 AM on October 4, 2005

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.
posted by jonah at 11:18 AM on October 4, 2005

Still a bit empty, but very cool. I look forward to SF bike rides.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:28 AM on October 4, 2005

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!"
posted by shoepal at 11:35 AM on October 4, 2005

Aw, I signed up and everything, and now when I try to log in it won't log me in : (
posted by nile_red at 11:46 AM on October 4, 2005

nice. thanks for the post.
posted by specialk420 at 11:49 AM on October 4, 2005

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.
posted by riffola at 12:19 PM on October 4, 2005

Sweet. First thing I'm building is a rip-off of Upcoming.
posted by blag at 12:21 PM on October 4, 2005

I can't login, either. I wonder how many people this login problem happens with, and why?
posted by lodurr at 1:14 PM on October 4, 2005

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 [!]
posted by rhapsodie at 1:33 PM on October 4, 2005

I can't login, either. I wonder how many people this login problem happens with, and why?
posted by lodurr at 1:35 PM on October 4, 2005

sorry for double post, opera bug in action
posted by lodurr at 1:35 PM on October 4, 2005

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...
posted by lodurr at 1:39 PM on October 4, 2005

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.
posted by shoepal at 1:42 PM on October 4, 2005

The problem with most social apps is that the people they attract suck.
posted by nightchrome at 6:13 PM on October 4, 2005

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.
posted by smackfu at 7:23 PM on October 4, 2005

Very very cool.

Password reset worked for me.
posted by stbalbach at 8:51 PM on October 4, 2005