Ning CEO Gina Bianchini Analyses Ning vs. Flux

If you've been considering adding social network elements to your blog or website you may have considered Ning's social network platform, where many have built unique social networks, and/or Flux's social distribution platform, which has begun offering widgets and will soon offer build-your-own networks.

In a great attack from Ning presented in a Techcrunch post, their CEO Gina Bianchini shares her analysis of why Ning is the better platform.

Given that Flux isn't fully available, that might seem unfair but check her description of the rights you sign over to Flux.  It's a good reminder that we really should be reading all those agreements before checking those little boxes when we sign up for a service!

I'm going to check things out on Flux but this doesn't look good for them.

Bianchini sticks it to Flux's owner Viacom as well by providing a timeline of ten years of new media failures followed by a brief history of Viacom's tendency to sue their partners.  Nice twist of the knife.

Comments

[Hashim]

I wish the Flux target audience cared about owning the data they put into the system, but they don't.

I've watched in amazement as every record company that I am familiar with has happily handed over their customer relationships to MySpace. 10,000 friends on your artist's MySpace page means nothing when another company controls how you can contact them. And it doesn't matter if your artist's MySpace blog has becoming popular, since another company will never allow you to export that content and use it on the next hot thing that's coming 12 months later.

What Ning should do is find another large media company and offer to power social networks for all of their online properties

[Clyde Smith]

And Myspace also has a crazy overreaching content claim in their terms of service.

I need to go back and check out Ning some more. I like what they're doing and would seriously consider them for such a thing but I also find the interface a bit clunky and counter intuitive.

I'm very curious about Kickapps.