KickApps is another dominant player in the field of white label social networking solutions. They currently power communities at sites such as HBO, BET, Proctor & Gamble and Autobytel.

KickApps versus Ning?

They are often compared to Ning, but I believe they aren't truly direct competitors - at least not yet. While Ning appears to have more traction with sites created by individuals, KickApps provides a more fully integrated solution that is suitable for larger, established players. Ning requires individual users to register at their site, while KickApps provides a solution to work with a company's existing membership database. Ning explains how this works on the business help page where they say "When your members register for your social network, they create an account Ning. They can use their NingID to sign in to your network as well as other social networks on the Ning Platform." I first heard at Mashable that KickApps recently announced support for a tight integration with Joomla, an extremely popular CMS that we use here at Social.com. Before leaving the Ning versus KickApps comparison, let's point out that Ning has done their own comparison of themselves to KickApps.

Widget approach

I really like KickApps's widget approach which Mashable covered well when describing the launch of KickApps Version 2.0. Quoting a key point made in that post, Kristen Nicole said "The key to KickApps success has been their branded options, allowing their services to be included (much like a widget) within an existing website without interfering with that company’s brand." KickApps is no stranger to good press which is well illustrated by the TechCrunch post titled "KickApps: White Label Social Networking That Delivers". I was also impressed that KickApps is continuing to push their game including recent support for the iPhone which TechCrunch did a good job of covering.

Strong funding and a strong team

KickApps announced a Series B Financing of $11 million in a blog post dated August 14, 2007. This comes a little more than a year after they announced their Series A round of $6 million. With an impressive team to back up their technology, I think KickApps will be very successful for a long time to come.

- BlueSkies

What is a white label social networking host? It is a company that provides both the software and hosting for your social network - and allows you the ability to brand it all as your own.

There are lots of these types of solutions. TechCrunch has done a good job of covering the major ones with first a list of nine and then an update with 34 more. I've also run across a good list in the blog by Jeremiah Owyang.

The focus of this post though is about Ning. On July 26, 2007, Ning reported that they had 80,000 social networks and more recently on September 23, 2007 they announced the 100,000 mark milestone. That's 20,000 new networks in about 2 months! Now admittedly their top 200 networks account for about 37% of their total page views, and there are many networks with little to no activity - but the sheer number of people showing an interest in their platform is impressive.

I had a first hand opportunity to create a new network, invite a few friends, and give it a spin. How do they measure up?

Network Creation

First you'll need to get your own Ning Id. In fact, all your users will also need to do the same. This may be considered to be somewhat of a drawback since you don't have access to your user's registration information. This is somewhat mitigated by being able to collect special information from the user via their profile that is only visible to the Network Creator (ie. e-mail addresses). Some other white label providers such as KickApps provide for a single sign-on procedure for integration with an existing user base.

Network creation is a breeze. There is a nice walk through as you create your network where you can name it, select a theme, select the features your network will have, etc.

White Label

If you want to brand your network as your own, you will want to add some premium features. As of this post, these features included:

• Use your own domain name for $4.95/month.
• Remove Ning promotion links for $0/month (not sure when they made this free)
• Run Ads on your social network for $19.95/month. Not really a white label feature, but does allow you more control by being able to remove ads altogether or run your own.

These features allow you to remove virtually all the Ning references and a little CSS tweaking can help you remove the rest. An active Network Creators area (a social network on its own) provides great information on these types of customizations.

Features

Ning is a feature rich social network. A customizable homepage can be complemented nicely by tabs to pages for Members, Forum, Groups, Photos, etc. You can create Badges to promote your social network and there exists a built-in means for Facebook application integration. Currently offered Facebook applications include a Music Player, Video Player and Photo Slideshow so that your members can play media from your network.

Private or Public

Your new network can be set to private or public. If it is public, anyone is free to join. In fact existing Ning users can re-use their Ning Id to login to your network. I like this username consolidation, but better might be to allow for use of OpenID for your online identity.

If you would like more control over your network then set it to Private. New memberships are by invitation only. You can choose whether to allow existing members to invite new people, or leave that completely to your own control. You can also optionally allow prospective members to request an invite via a form that you can enable on your homepage.

Ning is here to stay with strong funding

Marc Andreessen reported on his blog on July 9, 2007 that Ning had closed their first outside investment round - "Series C" - and raised $44 million dollars. He states:

"We will be investing that money in our business -- in scaling our operations to accommodate our traffic and growth; in our product design and development efforts; and in our platform evangelism and support programs."

What I'd like to see

There is one feature that I'd like to see added - a restore option in the event of catastrophe. Currently Ning does allow a Network Creator to backup information from their network. There is information about this titled "How Do I Back Up My Members Profile Information" and also "How do I obtain Atom Feeds to backup my data". My understanding is that the primary reason for this is to give a Network Creator the ability to move their network off of the Ning platform if this became desirable or necessary.

What is missing is a Restore feature. It is easy to delete a Ning Network. Login to your Ning account as Network Creator, and click on a link that says Delete Your Social Network (you are prompted of course to make sure you really want to do this). What if this wasn't you that logged into your account, but a hacker that got hold of your password?

There is a thread about this titled "What is Ning's own backup and restore procedure for user networks?". Ning does state that they would work with the Network Creator for a restore, but it would be nice to see a more formal stated policy and procedure. Ideally the Network Creator could perform the restore themselves from their own backups.

Summary

I think that Ning is top notch in the hosted social networking arena. A wide array of network features, great administrator controls, white label options, an active developer community and strong funding makes me believe that Ning will be helping social communities to prosper for a long time to come.

- BlueSkies