Since creating Tontine Nation I’ve been a heavy-duty network creator on Ning for about 1.5 years now, and I’m continually amazed by how music artists push Ning to its limits.
Ever since 50 Cent launched his official online community on the Ning platform at ThisIs50.com, many other music artists have jumped on the bandwagon. Here are some high-profile examples:
If you are Ning network creator, I suggest that you join all the official music artist networks that you can find. Why? These guys (or rather the developers that are hired for this task) really know how to squeeze the most out of Ning’s capabilities.
A good example is 50 Cent creating faux member accounts to serve additional functionality to the social network. See, the problem is that despite Ning’s multitude of social networking features, one feature cannot be duplicated for another function. For instance, I cannot clone the Discussion Forum to serve a completely different purpose within the same network. But 50 Cent has discovered a hack-up solution to this. (You will have to register for ThisIs50.com to look at the following internal pages.) thislife is like a reality TV show run within the social network. thisis50fitness regularly updates workout tips on how to crank out a gangsta-rapper physique. mixtapeweekly needless to say picks a mixtape of the week on its blog. These are an interesting implementation of creating micro-niches within the Ning network itself, and having the user profile serve as the platform.
Also, it’s cool to see other remarkable effects such as the album countdown splash page to Soulja Boy Tell Em. Or how about just the superb web design work done on artist networks like ThisizGame? You will notice that rapper Ning networks are generally pimped out to the max, blowing away every other Ning network’s appearance.
As Ning slowly closes down its custom script development channel, we’ll be seeing more and more creative workarounds from the music industry. So keep out a close eye and learn from the true innovators in the Ning community.
The Conversation {2 comments}
I wouldn’t say of those music industry sites are examples of “superb web design.” It’s the same content-mash style that wins MySpace the ugliest site honors without fail.
I can appreciate a developer using the Ning network in unanticipated ways to create functionality, but it shouldn’t make us wince.
Brendan — I agree with you, so let me try to state that a different way… Much more money has been invested in flashy web design compared to other popular Ning networks shown here: http://www.ning.com/home/networks
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