ning’s worst nightmare: myspace opening-up
May 8th, 2008
I get asked on a regular basis why I haven’t plugged-in a social network or community into Cheezhead. (”The pageviews are crazy, dude!”) Granted, I dabble in Facebook, but I haven’t infiltrated the main site with user profiles to date. With Ning sites popping-up faster than Roger Clemens accusers, it’s a fair question. And one for which I don’t have a great answer.
That said, the reply I typically give has to do with a feeling that isn’t quite right. Ning seems too restrictive and clunky for my own taste, for example.
At some point, I believed, more popular and more flexible networks will have to open-up, via APIs, to all kinds of Web publishers in a variety of different ways. Then it might feel right.
Enter MySpace, who today made a move to eventually give sites all across the Web an ability to add the No. 1 social network’s user data into their own infrastructure.
Says Techcrunch, “MySpace is essentially making key user data, including (1) Publicly available basic profile information, (2) MySpace photos, (3) MySpaceTV videos, and (4) friend networks, available to partners via their (previousy internal) RESTful API.”
This is step one (OK, maybe a few steps) in making such data seamless across a near unlimited number of Web platforms. I’m talkin’ mashups galore, people. And if you think Facebook isn’t taking notes, guess again. The fastest growing network to MySpace’s largest is no doubt going to open too. LinkedIn too, perhaps? (Yes, Jobster should have done this a year ago.)
Ning will open in a similar fashion too, but they’re way behind the sites previously mentioned in terms of market penetration. They certainly saw this day coming. That’s for sure.
But it probably won’t cushion the landing all that much.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I’ve always been a Facebook guy, and I’ve basically ignored MySpace, but this might get me to give them a try. I really want to like Ning, but I belong to a few networks and barely ever visit them. There’s a ton of innovation yet to come in social networking, and I’m excited to see where it goes and how much it affects the realm of online job search.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Great observation, Cheez. Thanks for doing a round up on the social/networking sites. Mass customization and portability (of info) will help seed/grow newer sites and keep the more developed ones relevant (longer at least).
With the exception of Linkedin, I haven’t seen impressive results from social networking sites in the recruiting senses. Perhaps its just so subtle that I need to have such news packed, wrapped and delivered to me with a bow on it.
All the best,
8~)
May 9th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I don’t use facebook, I don’t use myspace, so maybe I am unqualified to respond to this post but I think that vast majority of users of all of this stuff are not looking at it from your perspective.
the thing about Ning that I get now that seemed to be a pain way back was that each time you joined a ning network, you needed to fill out a new profile. I get it now because, Ning communities are driven by either interest or profession or maybe both. My profile on www.RecruitingBlogs.com is going to be way different than my profile on lovers of Newfoundland dogs or my profile for lovers of ( i can’t say it here)
i read that article in fast company about Ning and from what I can tell, they don;t seem to be worried about too much these days other than rolling out new functionality ( they do it all of the time) and giving great service to their network creators.
Maybe they are worried a little but I think a big fat cushion is not on their top 50 things to worry about the most right now.
There are of course limitations to it and after a year of running a ning network, I can talk for hours about it but none of my issues have to to with the stuff you are referring to.
See you next week Joel,