Perhaps I am putting too much stock in one blog writer's assessment, but the post on Charting Stocks gave me a poor impression of ning.
I disturbs me that ning is described as apparently planning to capture personal information from people who use ning social network pages and then use that information to promote its own service.
That's just not nice. That's as if everyone who went to a party had his or her wallet stolen by a business rep who only wanted to create an advertising database.
I am staying away from participating until I learn more from more sources about what's happening at ning.
That said, I couldn't resist a peek at ning. I like the way the pages are collected as individual websites. I had fun visiting the page Fiber Arts/Mixed Media, where a monthly creative challenge is posted. For June: Make birds or birdish forms out of castoffs. I also enoyed visiting gardenersindex.com, where I learned that there will be a tour of DFW-area ponds on June 18.
Photo by fczuardi via flickr's Creative Commons
Facebook and Myspace are monitored by the CIA and other agencies already so Ning wanting to make a buck is no surprise. Your shopper cards at groceries have built a database of the foods you like to purchase and the relation to the sales price, days shopped most often and many other factors that is allowing markets to adjust to meet the average consumer better and track how changes effect sales in different demographics. If you are a heavy plastic card user the credit card companies do this as well. Anything outside of the pattern is noted and compared for possible fraud or promotion use that achieved a desired purchase result. Life is full of data snooping.
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