Ning the network of social networks that boasted 20 million visitors a month, is making massive staff cutbacks and has announced a complete end to free services for its users. Those who pay for premium services will be asked to pay more, and those who are getting their social networks free of charge will be asked to fork over or phase off the Ning platform.

For a while now, we’ve been seeing Ning through rose-colored glasses. One year ago to the day, the company announced it had attained 1 million unique social networks http://mashable.com/2009/04/16/one-million-ning-networks/built on its platform, along with a $500 million valuation. In May 2009, the company rolled out a developer platformalong with 90 ready-to-go applications for network creators. On paper, their numbers were looking great.

Then, just last month, we got word that CEO Gina Bianchini had left the company. On the heels of this news came a 40% workforce reduction and a dramatic announcement http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/ning-update from the new CEO, Jason Rosenthal:

When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what’s working, what’s not, and what we need to do now to make Ning a big success.

My main conclusion is that we need to double down on our premium services business. Our Premium Ning Networks[...] drive 75% of our monthly U.S. traffic, and *those Network Creators need and will pay for many more services and features* from us.

So, we are going to change our strategy to devote 100% of our resources to building the winning product to capture this big opportunity. *We will phase out our free service.* Existing free networks will have the opportunity to either convert to paying for premium services, or transition off of Ning[...] All of our product development capability will be devoted to making paying Network Creators extremely happy.”

VP Advocacy John MacDonald added, “I feel confident that this change in direction will be very positive for our premium service customers because Ning will be 100% focused on delivering the features and services which benefit you and help you achieve your goals.”

Currently, Ning’s premium offerings include express access to customer support starting at $10 per month, removal of Ning links at the bottom of pages at $25 per month, custom URLs at $5 per month, an ad-free interface at $25 per month and extra bandwidth and storage at $10 per month.

The Cost of Free

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Site que hospeda redes sociais terá apenas clientes premium; 40% dos funcionários serão demitidos.

A Ning http://www.ning.com/, startup que mantém um serviço de hospedagem de redes sociais – e que teve o criador da Netscape, Marc Andreessen, como seu cofundador -, anunciou planos de cortar o uso gratuito e demitir cerca de 40% dos funcionários, informou nesta segunda-feira (19/4) o jornal Wall Street Journal.

Em comunicado enviado por e-mail aos funcionários, e que depois foi publicado no blog da empresa, o CEO Jason Rosenthal, avisa que a Ning vai mudar sua estratégia “para devotar 100% dos recursos para construir um produto vencedor” e que “desativará o serviço gratuito”. “As redes gratuitas existentes terão a oportunidade de conversão para os serviços premium pagos, ou sair da Ning”, acrescentou.

No mesmo e-mail, Rosenthal – que assumiu o cargo de CEO há pouco mais de um mês, depois da saída de Gina Bianchini – revela que o número de funcionários será reduzido de 167 para 98 pessoas. “É algo difícil de fazer, mas estou confiante de que é a decisão certa para nossa companhia, nosso negócio e nossos clientes”, acrescentou.

Ao jornal, Rosenthal disse que a principal razão para a mudança é que as redes pagas – 5% do total – respondem por cerca de 80% da receita da empresa. O CEO citou outra motivação: a de combater abusos, como a do uso das redes para spam ou para pornografia. A empresa alega que as atividades ilegais são praticadas por usuários dos serviços gratuitos.

Fonte: IDG Now