Wow. In a move that will affect thousands of online communities, Ning announced yesterday that it was closing all of its "free" communities. This announcement comes at the same time that Ning announced that it's laying off 70 individuals, or about 40% of its staff.
There are a number of aspects to the implication of this move.
According to TechCrunch, Ning has $120 million of investment, and a reported $750 million valuation. It's a safe bet that the investors were not happy with the current trajectory of the company, and former CEO Gina Bianchini was ousted last month.The real impact of this move is on Ning's customers, the community creators and community members who had relied on the service and who had invested hundreds or thousands of hours building their communities. They now will have one of four options:
- Move to a paid plan
- Attempt to find a way to export off the content and conversations from their communities and move them to a new provider
- Skip step 2, and recolonize their community at a new provider and "start over"
- Abandon their communities