Ning - The viral expansion loop at work

May 26, 4:26 PMNetworking ExaminerMark Stelzner

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Gina Bianchini, Ning's CEO (Photo by Ning)

By all measures, their numbers are pretty impressive.  More than 1 million social networks (and adding 4,000 per day).  Nearly 5 million unique visitors per month (Jan '09 stats).  And just for grins, throw in fifty free out-of-the-box themes, increasing CSS controls, and a long list of new tools and widgets.  With a demanding list of high profile clients covering everything from energy ("The Pickens' Plan") to mysteriously hooded Q&A ("Ask a Ninja"), it appears that continued growth is likely in Ning's future.  

In April of last year, Fast Company ran an interesting article which emphasized the nature of the Ning's "viral expansion loop", meaning:

It's a type of engineering alchemy that, done right, almost guarantees a self-replicating, borglike growth: One user becomes two, then four, eight, to a million and beyond. It's not unlike taking a penny and doubling it daily for 30 days. By the end of a week, you'd have 64 cents; within two weeks, $81.92; by day 30, about $5.4 million." ~ Fast Company, 04/09

And with Ning betting on its users' interests to perpetuate this loop, net savvy chairman Marc Andreessen and his equally sharp CEO Gina Bianchini think they have a winning formula.  In her recent interview with CNN, Bianchini drove that point home:

CNN: What makes Ning different from other social-networking sites?

Bianchini: It's focused on providing the [means for] people to create new social networks around their interests and passions and connect new people around those passions. We think that's a very critical element of organization. The Facebook phenomenon connects you to people you already know and Twitter is amazing for news and real-time events. What we see with people who gravitate to Ning is meeting new people with similar interests."

As with all things online, time will certainly tell, but even Ninjas would agree that Ning is quietly taking out its share of the social networking competition.