What will happen to We Make Zines?

[Nichole]

I saw on Tech Crunch yesterday that Ning will be ending its free service to its users. Free networks will be forced to pay or move their networks elsewhere. This made me wonder what will happen to this community. I just found it, and I would hate to see it die!

Sorry if this was already brought up. I was just curious if people knew about it or not.

[Solve's Dad]

I'm in for contributing to stay on Ning or to screw Ning and go to another of the many better networks, whatever you want to do.

[Saling Pusa Distro/closed]

yeah i'd donate... and with the thousand(s?) of members of wmz, im pretty sure we should have enough money to pay for it and keep it going

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

Thanks everyone for the support. Ning will announce on May 4th the pricing structures and then we have ten weeks to decide, so it isn't as rushed as I had thought. As soon as I get some time I will get up a donation button and then I can look at the options when they post them. I feel pretty confident that there will be one for ten dollars or so a month. So, for 120.00 a year, I think we could get enough to keep us alive for a while....hoping.

Anyway, I will keep you posted.

Thanks,
Krissy

[Rick Bradford]

Right now I'm paying Ning 5 bucks a month for the privelege of mapping my domain (so the address shows as my domain and not Ning's). But Ning is so behind the curve as websites go (not to mention social networking) that I can't imagine paying them any more.

I'm moving everything to a new Joomla site which, of course, is a whole lot of work.

But FYI, there are a few Ning-like, hosted alternatives. It's a lot to read but there are some comparable (more or less) free options in these threads:

http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/the-best-most-reliable-and
http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/alternatives-1

Not to say WMZ shouldn't stay right here, of course. Should be pretty interesting to see what info comes out on May 4th though...

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

Hi Rick,

Yeah, those other sites are shiny and interesting, but the idea of trying to move the archives of discussions or losing them all is overwhelming. Yeah, it will be interesting to see what they say.

Krissy

Rick Bradford said:

Right now I'm paying Ning 5 bucks a month for the privelege of mapping my domain (so the address shows as my domain and not Ning's). But Ning is so behind the curve as websites go (not to mention social networking) that I can't imagine paying them any more.

I'm moving everything to a new Joomla site which, of course, is a whole lot of work.

But FYI, there are a few Ning-like, hosted alternatives. It's a lot to read but there are some comparable (more or less) free options in these threads:

http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/the-best-most-reliable-and
http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/alternatives-1

Not to say WMZ shouldn't stay right here, of course. Should be pretty interesting to see what info comes out on May 4th though...

[Rick Bradford]

Yeah, I hear that. Ning does offer the service (maybe a one-time deal) of what I think is a full download of all site data. I guess that would make it easier to recreate member accounts and maybe move some of the content but it's probably mostly done manually and a lot of work. Myself, I'll cross that bridge when I get there! But I'd been planning to move away from Ning for a while so this just gave me the kick in the pants I needed to get to work...

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

New Note on front page about Ning costs and how to donate!

[Tom Hendricks]

I would be glad to donate if I could mail a check instead of credit card or paypal online.
If you can have that option, let us know who we should make it out too.
PS Please no ads - sooner or later ads ruin everything

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

Sure, Tom. People can send donations to:

PonyBoy Press
PO Box 14613
Portland, OR 97293

If we had ads it would mostly just be within the community, distros and websites and stuff. I will be sending out a poll so we can get an idea of how people feel.

Thanks!

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

On the front page is a thermometer and more information about donations and what we need to continue We Make Zines.

[Freeschool Community]

Krissy PonyBoy Press, thanks for all your great work here. We have a social network over at PeaceCommunities.ning.com

We are facing the same decisions you are. We have paid the $20 for a while now but even if WeMakeZines does cover the $20 per month, Ning announced the $20 fee will no longer cover video and music uploads, it will also not have access to API (which makes twitter and other applications so easy to integrate) and worst of all you can't pay for extra storage... so some day we make zines may have to pay $50 a month to ning... in order to get most of the services that you now get free (except with a few extras thrown in). That would be very unpleasant. You can see the full ning chart here.

Ironically, There is a Ning community discussing alternatives where ning communities can go and it is here: http://theningdirectory.ning.com/group/alternativesolutionstoning

I was wondering if you could start a discussion in We Make Zines about what the members of We Make Zines would think about WMZ moving to one of the other platforms out there. I know I'd be interested in hearing what zinesters might think of other alternatives. It would be great to see the issue highlighted here in a discussion group.

One thing is for sure, I don't think it would be a great idea to sign up for a year contract with ning. It is only a $40 dollar savings for the yearly rate and there are a lot of alternatives being created every day now that so many Ning users are migrating.

Thanks for considering it.

Keep up the great work.

Love, peace.

[Krissy PonyBoy Press]

By the way, if you are sending a check please make out to K. Durden. Do not make it out to PonyBoy Press.

Thanks!

Tom Hendricks said:

I would be glad to donate if I could mail a check instead of credit card or paypal online.
If you can have that option, let us know who we should make it out too. PS Please no ads - sooner or later ads ruin everything