The Ning Effect
Monday, April 19th, 2010 by MarissaThis week, the online community of online communities was shaken by the April 16th announcement by that the online networking company, Ning, would be phasing out its free product. Ning had cornered the market for building online communities in a fast and easy way. It was also free. It was a non-profit’s dream.
But now, if your non-profit has its community data in a free Ning product, Ning has just become a nightmare. This highlights the problem with “free” software. Free is rarely free.
We come to depend on the fact that this software will be available for us tomorrow. But when your software is hosted and free, your data, your community, your images may not really be yours. Google can rescind Analytics tomorrow, and there is not much we as users could do about it. It’s unlikely, but it’s always a possibility.
I love recommending free and fun tools, but you must always remember the caveat: online software that is free today may be gone tomorrow.
