Helpful Resources for Ning Users
April 15, 2010 in Community by John James Jacoby
One of the great things about running your own website is that you get to set the course it will take. We’re aware of the upcoming changes that were announced today on the Ning developer site, and we wanted provide some useful resources to help existing Ning users looking to transition to a new platform.
First is the Ning to BuddyPress Blog, currently operated by yours truly. It’s meant to be a raw and simple collection of tools and links to anything relating to easing the transition. It’ll be updated frequently over the next couple of weeks to provide the most up-to-the-minute resources.
Second, Boone B. Gorges has built a Ning to WordPress/BuddyPress user importer, which is a great start at getting some of your data moved over.
Third are our support forums. We have a bunch of really awesome people that are all willing to help should you have any questions or issues.
Lastly, we have our Codex. If you’re not familiar with the word Codex, think of it like a FAQ on steroids. There you’ll find everything from installation steps to higher level techie stuff including how to extend BuddyPress and build your own unique feature set.
Please feel free to ask any short questions in the comments, we’ll do our best to answer common queries.
This is the time for the Buddypress community to shine.
Ning users might have to get used to the fact that they will be hosting BuddyPress, which is awesome because you’ll be owning your own data (if this Ning example isn’t a good example of the pitfalls of NOT owning your data, I don’t know what is). Those with recommendations for hosting might chime in as well. I personally have good experiences with Media Temple, Rackspace, and Peer1/ServerBeach with BuddyPress projects. I’m sure developers will have many more.
Bad news for Ning networks, but great news for you guys. I can’t wait for you to be all over this, see BuddyPress expand and consequently become better and better. I bet you all cheered in the office when the first person told everyone else about the Ning announcement
I am voting for Boone to become the next member in the BP-Core-Development-team.
Uhhg at first I was like NOOOO not those NING people. Honestly, they will enjoy being able to create even better networks than what NING provided with their $60 million funding. Better yet, all you premium NING people should drop NING too. Come here and spend your money on quality BP devs who make awesome plugins!
@dimensionmedia: All good hosts. For your entry level community I would even recommend 1and1, and for your dev who needs a quick empty environment slicehost gets the job done also.
@darfuria: no cheering, just open arms
@modemlooper: add yourself to the Consultant Wall if you’d like to help people make the transition.
“We’re aware of the upcoming changes that were announced today on the Ning developer site”
Which announcement are we talking about?
I’m not a Ning user and don’t seem to be able to find anything relevant about Ning.
There is no free lunch !
For users like us – nriconnect.ning.com – we had anticipated that the ads on the ning network would keep things going.
No issues – buddypress is the way to go !
@Pepijn de Vos
See http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/15/nings-bubble-bursts-no-more-free-networks-cuts-40-of-staff/
A suggestion and sorry if I talk nonsense.
Byddypress could not integrate with Fantastico De Luxe?
I believe that most users of Ning, have no knowledge of Host and facilities.
It would be a way to encourage. Wordpress and BuddyPress, installed easily.
Lauro Faria
http://www.bdibbs.com.br
Sorry, english by Google.
@Laura if your users don’t need a blog then you can just use the one click wordpress install and add buddypress via the plugins menu.
I’ll chime in on hosting since I’ve been dealing with a variety of hosts as a webmaster and wordpress person for maybe 5 years now.
Hands down, my choice is Tigertech.net for hosting. They are affordable, they include your domain name registration FREE with any hosting plan. The base hosting plan includes EVERYTHING you would need as far as access to PHP, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, FastCGI (you’ll need it for a busy community site), and UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH.
I offer to switch all of my clients to Tigertech.net’s hosting for FREE because they make life as a webmaster and wordpress designer incredibly easy.
http://www.tigertech.net
Thats good that we can import our users im more concerned about the volumes of content that i have on my social network. I have a lot of members and a lot of deep content that can’t be found in a lot of places. What do you guys suggest in importing all of the ning content besides replacing all of it manually? I still have not figured out how to back up my ning site as of yet.
I believe that most users of ning has no knowledge about hosting and facilities but the fact that ning users must be or will be hosting buddypress which is awesome because you’ll be owning your own data.
I am a web designer and my clients are one of the Ning users looking to migrate. I am looking at buddypress and elgg. Their website is wordpress and I am very familiar with it. The use Ning as a private, invite only intranet for shareholders. I was wondering if this would be easy to accomplish. I have seen invite plugins, and private plugins so I assume they would work well together to create a “walled garden” platform. My biggest concern is migrating the data from the Ning export. Any suggestions? Comments?
Will there be a plugin developed that will work with the new Ning Network Archiver? It seems like we should be able to bring over ALL our content with the right exporter.
I am in the process of moving from Ning to Wordpress with Buddyress and am excited about the member export tool, but am really curious about the new Ning Network Archiver. Is there a tool under development that will take that content and import it? It seems like we would be able to bring ALL the site content over if that were the case.
Confused : I am using the current Wordpress 3 and the most current Buddypress. I have been using Wordpress as Wordpress MU.
Users who have uploaded their own image cannot get to show these in the blogs. Buddypress shows personal images but in Wordpress blogs Gravatars are displayed. Please help!!!
Are any other members here having the same problem?