Actually there are a few CEO, from Utterz and Talkshoe come to mind who come to mind as examples, but the point is, this complainer is way off on what he says, it’s not true and such statements are absurd. I’ve spoken many times with various people from Ning and I doubt that any of them would ever be capable of being nasty with a user, even should the user deserve nastiness.

I have NEVER had this problem with the staff. I started my network up approx 6 weeks ago and since then it has been one of the most rewarding experiences for my website. The platform is great and the whole 4 second thing that you are complaining about – PLEASE. With everything Ning offers, 4 seconds is NOTHING.

Incompitent CEO? You are out of your mind. She is one of the most smartest, dedicated, and friendliest CEO’s I have ever had contact with. I have never talked to her on a personal level, but have read her blogs, forum posts, interviews, etc.. and I can clearly see someone who is very passionate about her company and passionate about seeing her CUSTOMERS succeed.

Please tell me right now Mr. Complainer: What CEO on this planet actually interacts on a daily basis with their customers? I cannot think of many besides MYSELF.

Best

From my experience I find unlikely that anyone from Ning might have called you “odd” or disrespected you at this level, and if someone told you that you were the only network creator at ning with more than x required profile questions, it is probably because it is true, and they were describing the issue and why this haven’t been noticed on any other network before yours, not to point fingers or play the blame game, but to be clear about the description of the issue.

As for death threats, this is a serious police issue and you should seek legal assistance, people that engage on internet flamewars are unfortunately target of this kinds of things, it is a bummer, but it is how the internet goes, a forum in a Ning network is no different than an Orkut or Myspace group (or any mailing list and web forum for that matter) in that regard, this is why moderation tools are for.

As with any community, it helps to be on-topic, and if you got banned from Network Creators, a forum to discuss issues related to ning networks I feel very sorry for you, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the reason was off-topic posts and that you were warned.

As a Ning user and developer, I agree with you that performance can and should be better, I see incrementally improvements on this area on each new release and although it might be not suited for everyone it is not IMHO bad in comparison with other free and even paid services. But I cannot agree with the rude Staff part (yes, I am a member of the crew today but that was not always the case, and I am not speaking in Ning’s behalf in any ways here, this reply is personal and probably not supported or endorsed by Ning), and also not with the hardheaded CEO, I think she does a good job in fact considering the ambitious scope of the service. But I guess this is just an opinion. :]

I recorded a conversation with her I had yesterday:

http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-43023/TS-78280.mp3

Ning is a platform. It’s like a jazz standard, in the hands of a creative person, a Ning network can become a beautiful and useful site. I’ve seen every possible idiom on Ning, from porn to teaching Spanish in Mexico, from VOIP Users http://food4wine.ning.com to http://baristaexchange.ning.com/ to http://www.comechill.com

YMMV – for me, Ning is a winner

Advantages. Only site I know where a layman can create his own mini-Network or Forum

Disadvantages. Staff rude, can’t admit mistakes, blame you, Ning is not what it is advertised as.

My experience with Ning. I am a dyslexic person on disabilities whose hobby it is to coach young men in dating and relationships. I tried using Ning as a teaching aid. Ning staff are very bad at accepting criticism. They can’t admit their mistakes. Ning is very slow. Gina Bianchini said something is wrong with “me” if I think waiting 4 seconds for a page to load is slow. I am using Orkut, MySpace, Yahoo Groups, and those networks are a lot faster. Although Ning finally listened to me and made their site a little faster, it didn’t do me any good.

One of the features Ning is boasting is the ability to create your own profile questions. But what they do not tell you (at least they did not tell me) is that, the more questions you make, the slower your Network is going to be. (Right now I have to wait 20 seconds for a page to load on my Network.) After they told me this was the case it was too late. I reduced the number of questions, but the members’ profile answers are already stored in the system. They told me the information couldn’t be deleted and my Network will always be slow. Again instead of accepting responsibility they played the blame game with me. They told me I was the only one on Ning who made so many profile questions, and that I was odd. It is funny hearing this from people who allegedly want to give Network creators freedom to be individualistic. Not to mention that its rude. As a result I have lost months of design effort and time.

They say in an advertisement that you can create your own Social Network, but in reality it is more like your own forum or miniature network. The Groups feature of Ning Networks is very underdeveloped. For instance you can’t approve group posts. This one-fit-all approach is why all Ning networks look the same. I’m sick of all these sites luring you with false promises and providing no service of any value.

Also, I got a death threat and when I complained they banned me from Network Creators forum. Most of the Networks on Ning are “dead”, in part because Gina has a big head and will not accept advice on how to improve the site. They have been very rude and inhospitable to me.

What is interesting about the new website Ning, from Marc Andreessen’s latest company 24 Hour Laundry, is that they are putting out tools to see what develops as consumers use the site. This is similar to what happened with the original SimCity, where…

Combine Ning and WordPress and I’ll essentially have my social media empire for less than a cup of coffee (assuming I have a computer and broadband connection, which I do. A good graphic designer would bump that a tad if

A trackback from Marc (thanks!), led to some good posts on Ning: Lucas Gonze: Social software for developing social software Kevin Burton’s Feed Blog: 24 Hour Laundry (Ning) Launches – Expect Scalability Problems Om Malik’s Broadband Blog – Ning, the