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ning

Page history last edited by Dave Lee 16 years, 10 months ago

 

 

 

[ning]

xxhttp://www.ning.com

 

 

summary of the application

according to their online documentation, ning is "a free online service for cloning, customizing and sharing social web apps." there goal is to make the creation of social web applications accessible to non-techies. you begin the ning experience by browsing their "playground" listing of currently available applications. when you find one that you like, you simply hit the "get your own!" button at the top of the page, name your application, choose a unique url and bingo bango! you have your own social web application. from the templates and applications currently on ning you can create a version of "craigs list" for your organization or a family network site complete with an events calendar, profiles of each member of the family who joins, rss enabled discussion boards, and a google map with everyone's location. many of the applications are mundane and have little traffic. but one application called "what's cuter?" has had over 10 million visitors. ten million!!! so what happened to all the geekiness of the earlier ning? it's there, too. with a click of a switch, you can identify yourself as a developer (it's a very loose definition of developer - even I got in). on the developer's side of ning, you get the keys to the kingdom. the folks at ning leave nothing about their application undisclosed. ning's standard set up and usage is free. they do have some premium tools and services you can add by paying for them (the ability to add google adsense ads is one example).

 

personal effectiveness xxx

 

i wrote a pretty harsh review of the previous version of ning in my blog, eelearning back in january - good, i'm not the only one. it was too techie and quite confusing.

 

not anymore.

 

the current version of ning is impressive in its user friendliness. it even goes to the point of having a "personality" - a bit snide and self-effacing - but a personality nonetheless. i was able to create a version of this application in less than 5 minutes. complete with the customized masthead. that application is set up for the review of web 2.0 applications. the difference from this wiki is that you can help me cocreate the content in a simple, collaborative environment. check it out at http://eelearning.ning.com

 

this is a review, and i do have a couple of items that i'd like to see the Ning folks consider. 1) make the data entry fields accepting of at least minimal html. if i want to bold something, it doesn't work. <br> nor <p> work to create paragraph breaks. an alternative would be to provide a wysiwyg control bar. 2) i haven't looked through all of the templates, but thus far i haven't seen one with a designated area to describe the application and how it should be used. and 3) please, reverse the situation in which to change the appearance of the application you have to make it live online to work on it.

 

but overall i heap praise on gina bianchini and her troops at ning. they truly listened to their customers and have a much better product for it.

 

learning effectiveness xxx

 

ning could be used in any number of ways depending on the creativity of the facilitator and/or students. a group application could be established for the class or learning group. the voting app could be used to poll people about salient topics. the mapping capability in several of the template apps could be used to help visualize numerous concepts. This said though, it would take a very tech savvy instructor to feel comfortable leading a group of ning student developers.

 

on a personal learning front, if you want to understand mashups better and deeper than you currently do, create a ning application, keep it private and experiment to your heart's content.

 

coolness xxx

 

this area is the biggest leap for ning. back in january i would have given ning 1 e. it was something that only the geekiest could say was fun and easy to use. today's ning is definitely cooler than cool. that you created a mashup will impress friends, family, and colleagues. i had one friend scoff at me "i thought you said you weren't a programmer. you sandbagger. that's awesome!" is there anything more cool than a tool that makes people beleive you have greater skills than you let on? i think not. add to it that ning truly does open up the hood of the car and helps you understand how some of this magic happens and you've got one of the coolest applications available for free on the web today!

 

personal effectiveness =
learning effectiveness =
coolness =

 

 

 

 

do you know a competitor to this application?

 

 

 

 

if you know of a competitor to ning and it's not in the list below, feel free to add it to the list by filling out the form to the right. that will put it on my radar screen for possible review.

thanks!

 

 

 

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