Whose Chicago cycling social network is it? (Not ours)

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by XV on September 2, 2010 at 2:47pm

Ning provides a service which they thought would be sustainable for free but now they charge a very minimal charge. Running something like bikeportland.org requires a substantial amount of time to setup and maintain, also you would have to pay for the servers.

Wordpress is not an open source social network platform it is only a blog/publishing tool. Bike portland uses vBulletin for their forum. (If you are looking for a truly open social platform look at something like Elgg), assuming the chainlink gets a moderate amount of traffic the google ads should be sufficient to pay for the monthly charges. Now the lack of api for transferring all the data from the ning servers is mildly concerning, but without burdening someone to step up to setup all the software/pay for hosting/maintain ad revenue I think ning is not that bad of a service.

Permalink Reply by Ace Mann on September 2, 2010 at 4:42pm

Who cares? If you don't like the way Ning runs their business or the way Leah is running the site go start your own damn one.I for one am very impressed and satisfied with how the site is operated.It does take money to pay for programmers,servers,bandwidth and other equipment, to make this so called FREE Internet work,all of those porn sites can't pay for everything you know.If you are worried about google or Ning collecting all your info then MAKE IT UP and if Leah is making loads of money from the site GREAT.I am sure that keeping the site up and organized is a lot of freaking hard work. Leah thanks again for a kick ass site. It is a real asset to Chicago area bike riders.

Permalink Reply by Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! on September 2, 2010 at 4:48pm

Since the beginning I had been railing against the Chainlink on the fixed gear forum and the CCM listserve due to it's Ning platform, which I hate, and then finally gave in to the masses since social networking platforms regardless of their Ning'ness are superior.

I have offered to host, help maintain and convert the Chainlink to the Joomsocial platform in the past. I'll even handle the cost of purchasing The Chainlink an $149 Joomsocial stand alone license. The offer still stands.

But I understand it's more or less impossible to change platforms now.... If it ain't broke, don't fix.

Permalink Reply by Bicycle Poet on September 2, 2010 at 6:28pm

Ace, I did not criticize Leah. Thanks for sharing your other thoughts.

Ace Mann said:

If you don't like the way Ning runs their business or the way Leah

Permalink Reply by Bicycle Poet on September 2, 2010 at 6:42pm

Spencer, I am interested in knowing what has held up your progress on this initiative? Skilled time or money? I've got a little of both, and I'll bet some others do too.

Before there was Chainlink, there was chicagocriticalmass.org. Before there was chicagocriticalmass.org, there was the CCM text-only email listserv. There are numerous smaller, focused listservs and forumns (including Yahoo and Google groups). My point: there is no precedent that leads me to believe Chainlink will be the last Chicago-based on-line social network.

Spencer wrote:
>If it ain't broke, don't fix.

What's broke about Chainlink is not Leah, nor it's users. California-based private owner is what is broke (or, not really -- $10 million a year!).

I think it is possible that a home-grown, non-profit co-operative corporation-owned bike social network could generate capital and operating costs through a) local business advertisement revenue, including Chicago bike shops and bike-friendly businesses and b) donations from philanthropic, financially-able members of Chicago's bike community.

I'm willing to work with others to explore a project plan, including coming with a realistic budget for such a project.

Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on September 2, 2010 at 6:57pm

Well, I guess this situation calls for the good-natured rejoinder the guy who organizes
the bicycle porn film festival uses on people who criticize the way he runs the fest:
"F--- you. Do it better."

Seriously, it would be great if you and your colleagues succeed in creating an even-better
Chicago bicycle social networking site that the already-excellent Chainlink. It could only be
good for the local bike scene.

Best of luck,

John Greenfield

bicycle_poet said:

Spencer, I am interested in knowing what has held up your progress on this initiative? Skilled time or money? I've got a little of both, and I'll bet some others do too.

Before there was Chainlink, there was chicagocriticalmass.org. Before there was chicagocriticalmass.org, there was the CCM text-only email listserv. There are numerous smaller, focused listservs and forumns (including Yahoo and Google groups). My point: there is no precedent that leads me to believe Chainlink will be the last Chicago-based on-line social network.

Spencer wrote:
>If it ain't broke, don't fix.

What's broke about Chainlink is not Leah, nor it's users. It's California-based private owner is what is broke (or, not really -- $10 million a year!).

I think it is possible that a home-grown, non-profit co-operative corporation-owned bike social network could generate capital and operating costs through a) local business advertisement revenue, including Chicago bike shops and bike-friendly businesses and b) donations from philanthropic, financially-able members of Chicago's bike community.

I'm willing to work with others to explore a project plan, including coming with a realistic budget for such a project.

Chainlink might be around for a very long time. I'm not rallying /against/ Chainlink. I'm rallying /for/ something else.

Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! said:

If it ain't broke, don't fix.

Permalink Reply by S on September 2, 2010 at 7:05pm

The $10 million dollar figure is estimated revenue with the majority coming from monthly fees. Since Ning is private, we have no idea whether the revenue actually covers their costs or not. Given that they're a startup, it probably doesn't currently.

Rallying for another social networking site for cyclists is great, but costs for software, maintenance, and hosting isn't cheap. Checking with google's adsense estimator getting 5000 hits a day would probably bring in something like $2000 a year. If you need any customization of whatever software you get, you'd probably be running in the red for the first two to three years.

All in all, I think Ning is doing a decent job, like Spencer says, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

Permalink Reply by Leah on September 2, 2010 at 8:04pm

Bicycle_poet, thanks for your post.

Ning does not run or manage The Chainlink. I, along with my business partner Julie Hochstadter, and in close partnership with the moderators, run the day to day operations of the site.

Ning is a platform that allows anyone to start a social network. The Chainlink was built on Ning because it allowed me to start a site with fairly robust functionality, very quickly, and without extensive website building expertise. Creating The Chainlink on Ning meant that I could get the site up quickly, spending my efforts on growing the site and reaching more cyclists, instead of stuck in website development. Of course, there are costs involved in the initiation and ongoing maintenance of the site.

You are correct that Ning recently updated its business model. The decision factors behind that change are proprietary to Ning. As I’ve mentioned before, this decision will not disrupt The Chainlink nor change the user experience on the site. We are aware of ongoing changes to Ning, and will monitor those changes in terms of the quality of site experience they provide Chainlink members.

Of course, as we’ve discussed before, though it is the most cost-effective means for The Chainlink, the Ning platform is not perfect. There are features and functionality that are not offered on Ning. As a result, we are exploring alternatives to Ning as part of our long term plan for The Chainlink.

Additionally, I understand that you are concerned about the ownership of the data within The Chainlink. Ning, Facebook and other social networking sites maintain ownership of data – in order to offer their platform to users, this is unfortunately the tradeoff.

Thanks for taking an interest in the site. I’m glad you’re a part of a community you feel so passionately about. As always, I’m available to answer further questions via personal email on the site.