After four days of the Grasshoppers group on Facebook, I’ve thrown a curveball. I’ve built a Grasshoppers group on the up and coming open-faced social network system, Ning. It’s only been four days, and people are all frustrated. They’re saying, “Why mess with something good?” And yet, at the same time, there’s a swirl of conversation about how Facebook isn’t playing very Web 2.0.
But here’s the thing: another reason why I stirred things up was to point out quickly that the group isn’t made because of facebook. The group is made because people agreed with the idea and they wanted to be part of something. It’s not about the bike, as Lance Armstrong said years ago. It’s about the people.
Humans at Ning
It’s harder to invite people in a big bundle on Ning. I griped about this on Twitter, and Tim Shey (a personal superhero of mine) said I should get in touch with Gina at Ning. One quick email later, and Gina explained within moments of me sending the mail that Ning was working on a new method to import groups / invite lots of folks, and that in the interim, she volunteered one of her staff (!!!) to help me add names 20 at a time, if I so chose.
Huh? Imagine! She’s not just saying, “Them’s the breaks, kid.” She’s offering me human resources to help out.
Web 2.0
Ning uses RSS everywhere. You can add modules really easily, but more interestingly, you can get the info back OUT of the platform and into a reader, at your leisure, however you want to slice it. It’s about bringing the information to where I want it, not walling it in.
Features
Ning offers tons of , including an open API. UPDATE: David from Ning (responsive again!) commented that Ning offers an open API, and he even points us to a great description here.
Facebook Has the Mass
Facebook has the bodies. With all of us writing about it all the time, and with it really being an interesting place to communicate, I’ll grant that. Facebook will trump Ning for their who’s who of engaged Internet-friendly types landing on the platform, not to mention the high school and college crowd piling in there, too. I grant that.
Ning isn’t LinkedIN or Facebook
But neither is the Grasshoppers group a software application. We’re people. I have a hunch. I think I’ll lose some people in these turbulent days. I think lots of the Facebookers who just said yes for no reason won’t come over. However, as 100 people logged into the conference call yesterday (and several dozen more just couldn’t make it due to the time of day), I think we’ve got an engaged group interested in the idea.
Will it blend? I sure hope so.
One last thing: I wouldn’t have even thought much about the software platform being interchangeable were it not for Eric Rice, who’s creating Saijo City as an idea that crosses over whatever platform he wants. You can blame Eric for bending my mind out of shape, and it not being able to return to elasticity (as per Adam Tinkoff’s fortune cookie twitter yesterday).
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