The Ning Thing & other tech news for Oct. 4 2005

so, I tried Ning today and it is pretty cool.
not all of the content is cool but the overall concept is pretty neat.

Ning is a new web thing that is probably going to give Craigslist, Flikr, & Match.com a good little run for their money.

from the Ning FAQ:

"Ning is a free online service (or, as we like to call it, a Playground) for people to build and run social applications. Social "apps" are web applications that enable anyone to match, transact, and communicate with other people."

Ning is beating the pants off Writeboard in the Technorati charts. yesterday Writeboard went from #10 to #9 and quietly dropped off the charts. but when Ning appeared in the #10 spot today it quickly shot up & is now perched in the #3 spot.

I tried Writeboard yesterday and although it seems pretty useful I could not find anyone interested in using it with me.

also, it is difficult (impossible?) to completely erase comments and I think that is a big fear for people. people don't want to write something they might regret, even if it is robot-proof.

there is not a lot of content on Ning yet.
mostly stuff about (you guessed it) palo alto & san francisco.
once the content starts pouring in I can imagine the site might get too bloated to be much use, but maybe that won't happen.

hopefully Ning won't be just another refrain on the Meet Exciting Singles in Your Area thing.

the best thing about Ning I think is that you can use it to build a playground for your own social network or geographical area IF you get in on the Ning Developer thing which is first come first served.

so. we will see I suppose.

I saw a big cafepress ad in Technorati today about their affiliate program.
Is anybody actually making money with cafepress? I am very curious.
the base prices are so high that it's hard to justify marking anything up more than 25 cents.

now they have their big affiliate kickoff and I am finding it hard to get excited about the gigantic profits I am supposed to make if I turn in all my friends' email addresses and get them signed up as cafepress shopkeepers.

oops I must get going now. have a wonderful day & thanks for reading.

--suzy

tags: ning, technorati, iki, ikimono, ikigai, cafepress