Recently there has been speculation (here and here ) or talk that Ning, the innovative social networking platform is a dead end and that it is all but useless to developers as a platform. This was addressed by Diego and on the Ning blog . I’d like to draw some parallels with a company that 3 or 4 years ago, I’m sure people were asking what their business case was (I know I was). They created the alpha of an online computer game, that really didn’t have a whole lot of a point, and had very little aim to it. This game was then basically deleted with their entire set of users who were told that they would be able to participate in the game proper later. The same company, in just a few years was sold to a Yahoo and lauded as one of the leaders of the Web2.
I’m sure you know who I’m talking about, Ludicorp and Flickr. Alot of the time that these guys spent perfect the Game Neverending, was spent learning exactly how the new technology worked, perfecting the engine and seeing how people interacted with each other in certain circumstances.
If you ask me, it’s a pretty big statement to say that Ning has no future. It may very well be that the next iteration of their platform and product is nothing like what it is today, but it still may have a huge impact on the web. I think the most important thing for Ning is that they have a really smart team, with something in the wild, beyond that, who is to say what they have is dead.
As always, comments are best done in an email or a post on your blog. I keep an eye on my referers.