ON NING THE NEW WEB 2.0 HOSTED APPLICATION KING?

STRIKE A WEB 2.0 POSE

Marc Andreessen's next new thing just decloaked from stealth mode, morphing from "24-Hour Laundry" to "Ning".  The ship is being captained/CEOd by the most capable Gina Bianchini.  Don't know what "Ning" stands for yet, but I'd suggest might be shorthand for "catching Lightning in a bottle"...again.

In any event, the idea is certainly cool.  With all the brouhaha about a whole new generation of "social" web 2.0 applications (see my recent post on this), how about a software platform and hosted service rolled into one?

In some ways, Ning addresses the dichotomy that has been developing in the blogging software and services world, between standalone blogging platforms and hosted blogging platforms (Think Movable Type and Typepad respectively under the Six Apart Umbrella).  It's something I described in a post a few months ago.

But Ning (currently a 14-person team according to SiliconBeat), seems to have the ambitions to be much broader and bigger.  My geeky sound-bite takeaway?  It seems to be Opsware (Marc's last and current company, formerly known as Loudcloud) done Web 2.0 style.  You could also say it's Opsware for the masses.  They could almost re-use the same slogan on the Opware site "Simplify IT...Automate".

Of course the business model is yet to be revealed, but it likely is some combination of hosting subscription/paid search advertising/software licensing model. 

The idea is that anyone can build cool web 2.0 apps on the platform quickly and easily (see here for ideas)...get them hosted, and rolled out asap, and let the world have at it.  Then of course tweak, refine, add/delete features, debug, etc., all the things a normal Web 2.0 application software company would do, but presumably a lot quicker, and with ALMOST the ease of starting a blog.  Heather Green of BusinessWeek's Blogspotting describes it as taking Mashups to the next level.  See this RestaurantReview application as a good example.

For a good example of the type of whimsical, funny, and intensely relevant applications for its targeted group, check out this KittenWar application, which apparently is an addiction around the Ning offices.  It's an interesting complement to Catster, which along with Dogster, is an example of Web 2.0 consumer application sites that can be launched along the Long Tail (no pun intended), of micro-interests and made profitable fairly easily as VC Jeff Clavier describes it here.

As Jeff puts it succintly in his post on Ning:

"Web 2.0 applications just got potentially even cheaper/easier to develop".

This doesn't mean VCs shouldn't fund and entrepreneurs shouldn't start new standalone Web 2.0 consumer application companies (as Om Malik implies in his post), but that a lot more folks who normally wouldn't do a start-up but have a cool idea, can get it off the ground a lot faster and cheaper.  And then see if it sticks.

As Ning explains in their FAQ:

"While free accounts on Ning aren't necessarily set up for running "real" businesses, given the open code sharing, content quotas, and prohibition on running third party ads, we will look to accommodate developers who want to keep running their apps on Ning.

For starters, there are premium services we are thinking of offering to enable greater flexibility and freedom for developers who want to build real businesses on Ning.

If these future premium services don't meet your needs or goals, you can always move your app off Ning. We understand."

It's a cool idea and potentially meets one of my criteria for a successful Internet company, i.e., help your users make money a la eBay, Google etc..   Here the creators of the successful apps could potentially create successful web 2.0 application businesses right out of the bat, with Ning providing all the professional hosting, platform development and maintenance.

But one of the coolest features seems to be in the fine print.

All data hosted in the applications is automatically covered under a Creative Commons license, with all the flexibility that provides from the current world of copyright limitations.  And there doesn't seem to be an opt-out option on that.

In this way, Ning could help usher in a world where data is more sharable, mixable, re-mixable, re-usable etc., of course with all the credit given to the authors in the chain.

At least that's my presumption, reading between the fine print.

Lot more to understand and explore about Ning, but thought I'd share my first take.  Be sure to check out the Ning Blog if you're interesting in tracking this some more.

Congratulations to the Ning team on getting this out the door.

Comments

[Amar]

Recipe for making my life a little more manageable =
Mix in 3 cups of kiko (www.kiko.com) with
2 cups of numsum (www.numsum.com)
Place the mixture in a vat of ning and cook until perfection.

Good post :) Thank you.

[Amar]

Other posts like these...

http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2005/10/web_20_higlight.html
http://earlystagevc.typepad.com/earlystagevc/2005/09/ajax_office_is_.html

There is a lot of excitement in the air :) Hopefully this time it will have a healthy dose of caution and maturity.