A Ning Platform Niche Social Network Sells on Ebay for $4,075 | The Talent Buzz

My kknetwork is much smaller. We're only just a little bit over one hundred. Trying to figure out what kind of themes are interesting and attracting more people. Still a long way to go for 1,200 members.

A Ning Platform Niche Social Network Sells on Ebay for $4,075 | The Talent Buzz: "A Ning Platform Niche Social Network Sells on Ebay for $4,075 | Posted by Jason

Earlier this year, Ning announced over 1 million social networks on their platform. How much could one of those with 1,200 members sell for?

Lance Haun, and Laurie Ruettimann just sold HRMToday, a niche social and blog network for the HR community sold last night on ebay for $4,075. The auction received 1,928 hits, and the price jumped $1,500 during the final 10 minutes.

What’s next for the site? We’ll have to wait and see what the buyer has in mind. In the end, the sites future clearly depends on their communication, approach, and strategy. If the community is not engaged fairly quickly, it will be interesting to see their response. As Lance mentioned in a recent blog post, the site added 12 members this past week.

As sites, networks, and blogs continue to merge I would expect we’ll see more of this in the social networking space. Especially with groups on Ning given the communities and functionality of their platform."

Marc Andreessen's newspaper death watch - Feb. 22, 2008

Marc Andreessen's newspaper death watch - Feb. 22, 2008: "'When you have an obsolete, inconvenient physical product that nobody wants in an era of universal online access, the appropriate strategy is clearly to raise the price,' he snarked. (He's not the only one gunning for the Times. A coalition of hedge funds just bought up 10% of the company and wants to install four of its own candidates on the board.)

Helge: The struggle of the newspapers is an issue for Finland as a leading paper manufacturer.

Andreessen has always been a blunt, plainspoken guy. He grew up in a tiny town in Wisconsin, and although he moved to California in 1993 to make his fortune, he maintains a Midwestern intolerance for pretense (and, apparently, fancy lunch spots).

He's a legend in Silicon Valley for having founded and sold, by age 36, two billion-dollar companies: Netscape Communications (unloaded on AOL (TWX, Fortune 500) in 1998 for $4.2 billion) and Opsware (a server-management company that HP (HPQ, Fortune 500) bought last year for $1.6 billion).

Helge: There was a mention about Flock and Ning.

Now he's going for a three-peat: He's co-founder and chairman of Ning, which makes tools to help users start their own social networks. His timing was perfect. Ning was launched just as the MySpace-Facebook phenomenon was taking off, and by last fall it had created more than 100,000 mini social networks..."

Helge: What does he say about managing a print company?

So what would he do if he were running the Times? Easy, he says. Kill the print product immediately and deliver the base line of news online only. "Take acute pain now in order to avoid years of chronic pain," he says. "Basic rule of thumb: Be on offense, not on defense." And the offense? Graft social networking features onto the online Times, of course.

Working Webware: Ning, king of custom social networks? on ZDNet.com

Working Webware: Ning, king of custom social networks? on ZDNet.com: "Working Webware: Ning, king of custom social networks? Ning CEO talks about company's DIY social-network platform

On Working Webware, ZDNet Editor in Chief Dan Farber and Webware.com's editor Rafe Needleman sit down with Ning CEO Gina Bianchini to find out about the company's social-network platform strategy and how the CEO plans to compete against other social-network enablers. Farber and Needleman then analyze the company's viability in the crowded social-networking space."