Marc Andreessen's Social Platform: Ning 134
An anonymous reader writes "As reported on SiliconBeat, Marc Andreessen has finally lifted the covers off his latest project: an applications structure called Ning, which makes the development of social websites like thefacebook.com and match.com more accessible. See TheGlu and Dating for examples of Ning in action."
What happened to farts.com, er, I mean loudcloud? (Score:3, Insightful)
How many social websites are needed? (Score:5, Insightful)
So while there could be a site for UNIX aficionados, and another for horse lovers, it'd be difficult to find somebody interested in both UNIX and horses when the smaller, specific sites are common. Both people could be listed in the more general, and larger, site. And thus it'd be easier to query for those interested in both UNIX and horses at once.
Re:Screw Andressen - he supports outsourcing (Score:3, Insightful)
Andreesen = synonymous with "failed business plan" (Score:4, Insightful)
I think every business he tried to start since leaving Netscape have bombed.
Color me unimpressed by lucky Mark's business acumen.
Re:How many social websites are needed? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How many social websites are needed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ning and Web2.0, the bubble is growing (Score:1, Insightful)
This whole Web 2.0 thing is a huge bubble. Everyday a new, supposedly Web 2.0 app comes out. Out of all these apps, do they think they'll be able to capture a large audience? All they get is 15 minutes of fame and then die out sitting in the corner of the Internet collecting dust. VCs are throwing their money as if these websites are going to be make money for them, and we all know most of them won't.
I don't know who here agrees with me, but I'm sure many people out there do.
Breakthrough in Social Network (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How many social websites are needed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Everyone's missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
That road-block is money: the admins, who are expected to invest time energy in tailoring their Ning-based websites to their target audience and then generating enough buzz/awareness to build the necessary momentum and userbase to actually make their websites useful, are not allowed to include any adverts because Andreessen & Co will already be inserting ads and explain that "don't look warmly upon more than one person running ads on an App or a page".
The real zinger, however, is that they helpfully suggest that you integrate Paypal and charge for your service. It's not hard to see that most apps that build any traction will turn to this option as the only way to gain some reward for their efforts and, obviously, to build a wall around their service/retain exclusive value, will default to tag their data as "private", killing the whole shared data eco-system concept.
I found your Rails articles a few months ago interesting, I'm surprised that you don't considered that a much better route for anyone with the imagination to invent new Web apps.
Re:Imposter Boy (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, that just reads like a lot of bitterness. I wonder if the journalist is peeved that Marc blew off his questions. You could rewrite the article to use complimentary terms instead of critical ones, and the facts would remain the same, but it would appear almost praiseworthy of Marc. For example:
A ploy? Really? Like Andreessen lured Eric into an evil scheme? The author could have written "Then Andreessen used the prototype as a proof-of-concept for recruiting a colleague named Eric Bina to team up with him." Suddenly its not all conspiratorial. In fact, it almost makes Marc sound determined or resourceful.
Any article that uses adjectives and subjective language to damn someone is pretty weak out of the gate. On top of that, half the stuff the article "rebuts" I had never heard. Marc didn't invent the first browser? Duh. Marc has always been "sold" as the guy who created the first browser with inline graphics. And he didn't write code at Netscape? So what? He wrote code at NCSA. By the time he got to Netscape, he was in a leadership position. That article's critique of Marc is bizarre.
Ming's too restrictive. (Score:4, Insightful)
Poof! Widespread adoption peters out right there.