With Ning no longer free, what are the alternatives?

Ning, the network of social networks that boasted 20 million visitors a month, is making massive staff cutbacks and has announced a complete end to free services for its users. Those who pay for premium services will be asked to pay more, and those who are getting their social networks free of charge will be asked to fork over or phase off the Ning platform.

Ning Alternatives

Of course, we want to provide some alternatives, but with this critical caveat:

Ning is one of the largest and most-visited networks of social sites in its class. If Ning can’t succeed in letting users build free social network sites, it might not be a viable business model for the other guys, either — and you might have to pack your digital bags again in another year or two.

With that in mind, here are some free, social network-building alternatives to Ning. In general keep in mind that there are two types of social network CMSes: The freemium, what-you-see-is-what-you-get, uber-user-friendly kind; and the open-source, do-it-and-we-mean-all-of-it-yourself, better-call-tech-support-if-you-can’t-code kind. The benefit of the latter is that, while it might be a pain to set up in the beginning, it will always be free. We’ll give you three of each variety.

• Grou.ps advertises itself as having “a cleaner interface” and “more features” than Ning. It’s a do-it-yourself platform that lets you create networks around any kind of content. To see an example, check out BlackBerry Leaks, a site for BlackBerry fanatics.
• Spruz is one site that’s specifically reaching out to Ning users, hoping to help ease their transition to a new platform. Saying he knew Ning was destined for implosion, CEO Jay Roberts writes, “We at Spruz have been working for the past six months to strengthen our free offering into a highly sustainable one [...] You are FREE to stay as long as you like!” Here is one example of a Spruz-powered site.
• SocialGO is another network-building tool that offers a free option. Check out this example of a SocialGO networking site. CEO Dominic Wheatley wrote yesterday that he, too, encouraged dissatisfied Ning users to migrate to his site by opening their API, stating, “For the sake of those customers, we urge Ning to take the honorable course of action and tear down this wall[...] allow those who have invested so much in the Ning platform to take their content to a social networking platform of their choosing.”
• If you’re a WordPress fan, check out BuddyPress. Both from parent company Automattic, these popular, open-source platforms are known for being powerful, flexible, simple and having a sizable group of plugins and customization options. If you want a test drive, check out the demo site. This is a DIY solution; you’ll have to take care of your own download, installation and hosting.
• Lovd By Less is another open-source solution written in Ruby on Rails by dev shop Less Everything. Another solution from the DIY camp, Lovd By Less can be used to create clean and trendy sites such as this demo.
• A final free and open source choice is Elgg. Elgg also has a hosted, no-hassles version for the tech-averse, as well. Here’s an example of an Elgg-powered social networking site.

Reposted from Yorrkshire & Humber ICT Champion Blog ( http://yhictchampion.wordpress.com/ )