For much of the past decade, the internet has been a great example of the old adage about the best things in life being free – whether one considers the mass of free information, media content, software, or services offered by the web, it seems clear that these days you can get an awful lot of stuff via your connection without paying for it (even more if you are prepared to breach copyright laws… but that is a different story). However, one of the latest services to buck this trend is Ning – provider of specialised social networks that have been free since the site’s launch but which will remain so only until this July…
In essence Ning offers a social network which focuses predominantly on a Facebook ‘groups’-style feature, aiming to bring together users with similar interests and foster communication and discussion along those lines. So for example if you’d like to join a group for fans of the World Cup 2010, or meet other health activists, find someone to discuss the finer points of sea fishing, or discuss parenting issues; then Ning is the place for you, offering specialised networks dedicated to all of the above, and of course much, much more.
The added bonus to all this was that all of these services used to free – just like most other social networks out there. However, where Ning has gone one expects many others might follow, as user numbers swell considerably and services expand to such a point of advancement that these very same users might actually consider paying a small fee to continue to access the networks.
There have been numerous debates recently about the monetization potential of Facebook, and endless speculation about how much the company is genuinely worth and Ning’s recent decision is certainly one relevant to these same debates about the (especially financial) maturation of social networking sites.
The problem for companies like Ning is that these days it is getting cheaper and easier to build your own social network so it is essential to keep justifying the pricing policy with features and service that consistently outperforms free rivals.
Even if successful in such a task, it is unlikely that the more casual users of such networks will be prepared to whip out credit cards when confronted with payment screens – more likely we’ll see some heavy network migration instead.
All of this really doesn’t matter for the network if the paid system produces higher profit than the free model, although there is no question that the move represents an ‘all eggs in the same basket’ risk (you can’t really go free again in a year if things don’t work out) and that, in the days when bespoke social network building is offered by most even smaller web development firms, introducing a pricing policy represents not only a signal of confidence in, and maturity of, the product but also somewhat of a critical gamble.
