Ning Users BE WARNED!!!!!

I would just like to take the opportunity to warn the AR community about the custom social network website Ning. As most of you will know ARB was the first animal rights concentrated social network at the beginning of 2009 using the Ning platform. Since then a LOT of other AR Ning netoworks have popped up, some great and others not so good. At the beginning of 2010 after some serious cashflow problems Ning announced they will no longer be providing a free service with all free sites to be closed down in due course if they did not convert to a Ning paid service. After hearing about Ning ending their free service it was decided to close ARB down rather than go to the paid option however some of us decided to continue with Ning and are opting for the paid service, BIG MISTAKE!

First of all you have to realise why Ning decided to stop offering its extremely popular and successful free service, simply because its in SERIOUS financial difficulty with debts running into the millions. Ning will unlikely recover from these debts and in the end will be no more, in the meantime their trying desperately to get some cash and using underhanded tactics to achieve this.

I have spoken to many Ning creators who transferred to the paid service recently only to have a great deal of money taken from their credit cards, well over and above the advertised amount for the paid service! When these Ning creators have contacted Ning asking for their money back guess what happens? Yes they never get a reply! Its daylight robbery in the making and when Ning decide to jump ship and run (which I feel will not be long after they finally stop the free service) there will be little chance of Ning users seeing their money again.

So please consider yourself warned and spread the word, DO-NOT PAY FOR NING! There are alternatives out there, maybe not as eye catching as ning but just as useful. If I was to reccomend one then it would have to be Spruz

The important thing to remember is most of what you want to do can be done using free services on the internet, when paying for a service check and double check they can be trusted :)