California-based Web company Ning must be having a pretty good year. In May, über-cool business magazine Fast Company spotlighted the oddly named startup and praised its business model, saying that Ning — which allows users to develop custom social networks around their communities and interests, e.g., macrobiotics or bowling — had hit on a recipe for exponential growth. The article reported the potential for each of Ning's existing users to attract dozens more, and so on, in a viral loop, meant that the company could host a staggering 4 million social networks by the end of 2010.
Just this year, Ning has enabled the creation of several Bay area networks that are fast altering the region's social landscape. (In fact, a search for Tampa or Sarasota-based Ning networks reveals that dozens have been created, but only a few have grown to more than 20 or so members.) In Tampa, there's Brand Tampa (brandtampa.com); in St. Petersburg, there's the Tampa Bay Creative Network (TBCN; tampabaycreative.org), which has regional ambitions. Sarasota boasts Sarasota Local (sarasotalocal.com) and Anything Arts (anythingarts.com), which recently launched Tampa and St. Petersburg sites and plans to expand nationally.
Each network serves as a kind of local Facebook. Members sign up and create profiles (similar to those on Facebook or MySpace), describing themselves in response to a series of questions. After that — and here's where the exponential growth factor kicks in — the sky's the limit; members can create special interest groups-within-the-group and invite more friends, post photos or videos (and comment on others' photos and videos), create blogs, ask or respond to questions in forums, plan events collaboratively and of course "friend" people whom they might otherwise never have met.
On Sarasota Local, members can chat in real time, thanks to a Ning widget, or add-on application; on TBCN, which is geared toward commercial artists and creative industry workers, prospective employers can search for members by vocation. But perhaps the most engrossing feature — less a technical feat than the collective result of Ning's user-friendliness — is the platform's ability to showcase individual personalities. Ever wanted to know what it's like to be an up-and-coming photographer who just moved to St. Pete from Philadelphia? Check out Fire/Fly Photography, aka Tracy Kendig's profile and photo portfolios on TBCN. Wondering what it's like to be a local actor and radio host in Sarasota? Read Cliff Roles' blog on Sarasota Local (then friend him.)
"You realize people have been itching to have this kind of voice," says Brian Ehrlich, founder of Sarasota Local.
Ehrlich, a Web entrepreneur whose main venture is Honeydo.com, launched the Sarasota site in April as a hobby; since then, more than 460 people have joined. Once about 200 members signed on, Ehrlich says, the site began to flourish, with a critical mass of active members adding events, creating blogs and starting conversations. At Brand Tampa, nearly 500 people have joined since the site was created five months ago. As a sign of its success, founder Julia Gorska points to the "real world" outcomes that have resulted from Brand Tampa member interactions, from a job hunting workshop (at Tre Amici coffee shop in Ybor) that sprang from a forum discussion to recent proposals for a Brand Tampa outdoor festival. What makes such interactions possible, Gorska says, is Ning's intuitive interface. Even someone with the bare minimum of technical know-how can set up a Ning profile in a few clicks.
"Anybody can do it — you don't have to be all code and program savvy," she says.
With a background in the arts and realty, Gorska admits she's an unlikely Web entrepreneur — until she read the Fast Company article and heard about Ning through a few other channels, she hadn't found her niche. Now she's researching how to expand the concepts behind Brand Tampa to other cities. Justin Elza, founder of TBCN, had been running a version of his group, called St. Pete Creative Network, since June 2007 — first through Meetup.com, then on a social networking website he built from scratch. After reading the Fast Company article, Elza, a Web and graphic designer and Web developer, switched to Ning. The change spelled an end to hours of maintenance work on the old site.
"I was constantly having to troubleshoot these problems that were created by my own inability," he says. "I read that article and I was like, 'Wait a second.'"
Though mostly free, Ning charges network creators a fee to use their own website address (as opposed to yournetwork.ning.com) and for Web-hosting space beyond the minimum allocation. Last month, as TBCN's members loaded images of their work onto the site, Elza attempted to introduce a monthly fee to the tune of just under $4 to cover Ning's charges. Reactions were strikingly mixed; one member sent $100 in gratitude, while about 10 percent of members sent Elza angry e-mails. Since then, he's made basic membership free, while offering an optional premium membership with extra storage space. Gorska is considering something similar for the few Brand Tampa members who want to post, say, hundreds of images or videos directly to the site.
Though Ehrlich says Sarasota Local will always be a sideline for him, both Gorska and Elza hope somehow to use their networks to launch their careers — even if the networks themselves turn out to be less lucrative pursuits than they once imagined.
"The difficulty I've just had in implementing the membership fee, I've put those delusions of grandeur to bed," Elza says.
In the meantime, the network creators are contacting each other to figure out what the future holds, as their members start discussions, brainstorm events and connect online.
"We're reaching out to compare notes," Gorska says. "It's a friendly space."
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2, 2008.