Ning appears to be ramping up and getting a lot of traffic from what they say. We created a network on their platform and we reported a bug to them yesterday, as the site threw an exception while we were using it and they replied that:
We had our largest day yet yesterday, and during peak times there were sporadic errors like you saw. We’ve ramped up our backend to prevent this from occurring again.
I then decided to check out their traffic stats on Quantcast.com: they do offer the ability for sites to host under their own domain name but it stands to reason that traffic to ____.ning.com would be instructive as to growth rate and so on. From the data on Quantcast it looks like they had about 220k uniques in November, should be interesting to see how that grew in December. Their traffic seems to have more than doubled from about 100k at the end of May 2007. One thing, however, that stood out as we looked at Quantcast’s list of subdomains for ning.com is the number of adult networks/sites they are supporting that pop out of the Quantcast results:
Also checking Alexa, other adult-sounding network names show up:
One larger question might be what % of Ning’s total networks and traffic falls into the adult category. I’m guessing these adult-content-oriented networks won’t make the corporate presentation, but I’m sure they will help drive continued growth for Ning. Good on ya!
13 responses so far ↓
1 Fabricio Zuardi // Jan 5, 2008 at 1:32 am
Also it is important to notice that some of the top networks on ning doesnt use the __.ning.com domain, since you can buy the option to map your own domain…
2 Is Marc Andreessen running a porn ring? [Social Networks] »TechAddress // Jan 5, 2008 at 1:47 am
[…] appears to get substantial traffic from adult-oriented websites it hosts. CPM Advisors notes that some of Ning’s top networks include names like girlongirl.ning.com, whiteholes4blackpoles.ning.com, and ladyboyworld.ning.com. […]
3 Advertisers triumphantly return to Valleywag [Sponsors] »TechAddress // Jan 5, 2008 at 1:53 am
[…] appears to get substantial traffic from adult-oriented websites it hosts. CPM Advisors notes that some of Ning’s top networks include names like girlongirl.ning.com, whiteholes4blackpoles.ning.com, and ladyboyworld.ning.com. […]
4 Is Ning a Porn Facilitator? »TechAddress // Jan 5, 2008 at 3:34 am
[…] CPM Advisors is reporting, based on some analytics analysis they completed, that some of the largest social networks built on the Ning platform are adult-oriented. Pornoworld and GirlOnGirl both receive over 3.5% of the traffic to Ning overall on the x.ning.com domain. Some Ning customers use full domain names so that traffic isn’t reported by CPM Advisors. […]
5 Gina Bianchini // Jan 5, 2008 at 3:47 am
Hey there! Thanks for the post!
While we don’t prohibit mature or adult-oriented social networks on Ning, this data is inaccurate.
When external “sampling” services like Quantcast, Alexa, ComScore, or Compete analyze the types of social networks on Ning, adult-oriented social networks are disproportionately represented. This is a result of a few things:
1. They can’t factor in domain-mapped social networks on Ning, which represent a sizable percentage of our networks and aren’t represented in the data of these services
2. Their samples are U.S. only and our usage is actually global
3. Their data is derived from a small sample of people who actively download a toolbar, which most people don’t
Unfortunately, these three factors skew any external analysis of the social networks on Ning.
In fact, if you look at the Ning Platform holistically, adult social networks are present but represent a dramatically smaller percentage of the total than a sample-based service would suggest.
In any case, thanks again for the post and kind words. We really appreciate it!
Gina
(co-founder and ceo of Ning)
6 Ning Shows It’s Naughty Side // Jan 5, 2008 at 5:14 pm
[…] we found recently that Ning is an exception in that regard. CPM Advisors pointed out this week that the social networking engine charted its November 2007 statistics, and the results show at […]
7 Matt Webb // Jan 5, 2008 at 7:59 pm
It’s worth noting that there aren’t as many adult sites in the Quantcast list as it looks on first blush. The third in that list isn’t “PornoWorld” but “PoMoWorld” (for postmodernists), as is NabloPoMo; girlongirl.ning.com isn’t an adult site but a Hot or Not clone. Even Oomphers is a fairly traditional, and innocent, social network. 3 - maybe 4 - of those 20 urls are adult.
Matt
8 » Ning Shows Naughty Side Tech Web Daily: Just another Tech News Blog // Jan 5, 2008 at 9:26 pm
[…] we found recently that Ning is an exception in that regard. CPM Advisors pointed out this week that the social networking engine charted its November 2007 statistics, and the results show at […]
9 Ning and porn: Get a life, blogosphere - - mathewingram.com/work // Jan 5, 2008 at 11:52 pm
[…] Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and the lovely and talented Gina Bianchini, and a post about how a large amount of Ning’s traffic goes to social networks based around porn. This was picked up on by […]
10 Ning porno issues « TechBays // Jan 6, 2008 at 8:09 am
[…] 2008 by Carlo Maglinao Marc Andresseen, founder of Ning, posted a longish answer on the issue of adult content. In a nutshell, we aren’t pro-porn, but we are […]
11 Techkeyla » What’s the fuss about Naughty Ning? // Jan 6, 2008 at 12:35 pm
[…] Sources:CPM Advisors; Mashable; CenterNetworks. […]
12 “Ning” Always Sounded Dirty : The Drama 2.0 Show // Jan 6, 2008 at 7:14 pm
[…] according to a group called “CPM Advisors,” it is. Apparently, quite a few of the most trafficked Ning social networks are porn-related. Allen Stern […]
13 Tales from the Net » Marc Andreessen on adult content and porn on Ning // Jan 14, 2008 at 11:13 pm
[…] now at Ning.com, has a lengthy blog post up on Porn, Ning, and the Internet. The context here is suggestions that a large part of Ning’s traffic is from adult content; since Penthouse just spent $500 […]
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