Recently the social community world started buzzing about Ning’s tyrannical policies affecting all users who have created social communities using Ning SaaS model. For starters, Ning is one of the big players in the SaaS-based social networking domain. Ning allows you to create and host your own social groups at a fixed monthly fee.
Read more about Ning’s alleged faux pas here
I completely agree with the above post. Being in the same business, I feel that our customers should have all rights to the data, as well as files for their social networks. We take pride in our social networking platform in ASP.NET, Communifire, and make sure that all our customers get to own the data as well as the published files without any issues.
I would advise users not to go for SaaS-based models because hosting your community on external servers not under your direct control will always leave you at the mercy of your vendor. Spend a little more money on a good platform instead of paying a monthly charge, and rest your mind in peace knowing that you are the actual owner of everything related to your community. Cheap programs are costly in the long run!
