Ning vs Forum/Blog

Ask away

Moderator: OpenUru.org Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Nalates
Member
Posts: 437
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2008 7:50 pm

Ning vs Forum/Blog

Post by Nalates »

A Ning question came up at GoMa in planning. I have Ning memberships but am not really seeing it as useful to anything I'm doing...
Ning vs blogs… I use WordPress for my free blog and continue to intend to move it to one of my web sites. Ning is something I’m very fuzzy about. OU has blog, wiki, and forum resources available. Which is better I can’t say. But, there are some things about blogs and forums that are related.

I think of a blog as a forum with all opening posts by the owner or a small team. It is possible to have a number of people that can post articles on a blog. Blogs do allow comments and can allow a series of branching sub-threads. The SL blogs demonstrate that well. One can reply/comment on the opening post or reply to one of the comments. In a way it provides better trains of conversation than a forum. The SL blog shows that extended conversations have display problems after just a few replies to replies.

How is Ning better or worse? I don’t know. A quick look around reveals this: Is Ning the Next step? The ability to transport data to a new platform is always a consideration for me. Ning seems to lack that. Ning is apparently more of a social networking tool than a blog or forum. I get it is somewhat like Facebook but allows private development of a Facebook like app. I need to learn more to make intelligent comments.

WordPress allows export and is a common enough format most services support it. It also allows one to backup a blog easily… hmmmm… I prolly ought to do that. It is not that easy to use as a ‘primary’ social networking tool and is mostly a one way communication tool.
I can't see Facebook as providing good historical documentation or a lasting resource. It's sort of transient, like Twitter. Good for light spontaneous chatter and keeping up with friends and events. I'm not really seeing how it would be used for projects. Any one have an idea how Ning is better than or different than Facebook?

Any examples of how it might be used with projects and role play?
Nalates
GoW, GoMa and GoA apprentice - Guildmaster GoC - SL = Nalates Urriah
User avatar
JWPlatt
Member
Posts: 1137
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2008 7:32 pm
Location: Everywhere, all at once

Re: Ning vs Forum/Blog

Post by JWPlatt »

We've been talking about people as a resource and organizing those resources in other threads; charts, outlines, wiki and stuff. Might be nice to give people a dedicated page for such things if the blog won't do it. The value depends on how many people would do it and use it. And what would make it better here than anywhere else?
Perfect speed is being there.
Tweek
Member
Posts: 52
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:00 pm

Re: Ning vs Forum/Blog

Post by Tweek »

The guys who make WordPress also make BBPress which is a very basic forum software that follows the same standards as WP and is able to merge with WP for a single Admin CP.

I use BBPress over at the Beneath Forums, they're not bad, ok for small forums like Beneath, but I wouldn't use them for anything big, they lack on a lot of much needed features which whilst can be added with BBPress' plugins should probably be part of the core features.

The concept of Ning is something I've seen many others try to do, and not really get there, Ning may surprise me, but I'm not really seeing it go anywhere significant.

WordPress has kind of evolved past being a blog tool these days, whilst blogging is the focus, it is more of a CMS that can handle more than just blogging.
Post Reply

Return to “Questions”