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Ning - I don't get it - Is it Drupal lite? Hypercard for webapps?
With all due respect to Diego (whose clever cactus had some awesome ideas), I don't get Ning. Is it Drupal lite? Hypercard for webapps?
Whatever! I do know the following:
- It takes a lot of chutzpah to compare their photo sharing app with flickr. Sorry, not even close. Please tone down the outrageous marketing comparisons ...or at least add smileys to let us know that you're joking!!
- If I was still programming, I'd be wary of hacking on somebody's system where they get my app and the system underneath is not open source (is Ning open source? I couldn't find the license in the FAQ). Instead I'd pay $5-40 a month for my own hosted server and hack in Drupal, Plone, WordPress or some other open source system where I knew the legal status of the system I was using and the code I was writing on top of that system.
- I love PHP but it ain't Programming for the People and it ain't Hypercard.
- URLs with ampersands, question marks and ".php" in them are so 1999 (don't 100% agree with Dave, but ning does appear to suffer from some "featureitis") and totally unnecessary.
- "the people" will use Jot et al and not program in PHP and not use Ning.
Comments
re: Ning - I don't get it - Is it Drupal lite? Hypercard for we
Hey Roland,
Good questions. :) Just a few points:
1- We're not comparing the photosharing app with Flickr. Flickr is an awesome service, but it serves a different, albeit related, need. The Flickr comparison is just to frame what it is, not to say that they're the same.
2- "they get my app" -- everyone developing apps on Ning benefits from what others have done. That's why the license for the code in the playground is Creative Commons.
- If you have enough knowledge to set up your own service, you probably won't have a use for Ning, and that's cool. Consider though: many people have enough knowledge to tinker but not enough knowledge (or time) to maintain a hosted account, or manage a DB, and many people could benefit from being able to use these app patterns for their own needs, without having to go through setup and maintenance.
- PHP: over time we'll be adding support for other languages, such as Python and Ruby.
- URL ampersands and such: I hear ya. We're on it :)
PS: thanks for the clevercactus comment! :)
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