Hi, Vance, and everyone.

This message is long overdue. I should start by thanking Vance for thanking me
in a previous message (I'm not sure what there was to thank exactly), and I
should continue by thanking Vance again for mentioning me here again (completely
undeserved).

I have read The Ning Thing article published by Vance in TESL-EJ
http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume14/ej53/ej53int/ as well as the
work-in-progress G-doc. Extremely conscientious coverage of the issue, as usual.
Thanks! I have also bookmarked to Multilit Diigo one of the sources mentioned
there
http://www.masternewmedia.org/ning-alternatives-guide-to-the-best-social-network\
ing-platforms-and-online-group-services/

I had mentioned some experimentation carried out so far in my reply to the Ning
discussion http://tinyurl.com/lclg
. After reading the documents mentioned, I did manage (after a couple of
unsuccessful attempts) to migrate all blogposts to Posterous
http://literaturettc.posterous.com/.

Earlier today I opened a Grouply account.

You can check it out here: http://lit2009.grouply.com/
The username for it is studentliterature@... and the password is
litstudent.

The good news is that in a few minutes it migrated all Ning members and their
info (55 people), subgroups (and their content, though not which members were
members of the subgroup)and photos and albums(including original dates, who had
uploaded them and the comments made on them). See the summary:

Subgroup Forums
66 messages imported
4 subgroups found

Photos
11 albums imported
80 photos imported

Members
54 members imported
1 were already members

A couple of features to highlight is that by default all members are notified of
any new posts by email (sth my sts always asked for in ning)and the ability to
see each page as visitor, as member, as owner very easily (even members can
check how their info is viewed by friends, etc).


Something to bear in mind is that even though your members are imported they
should create a Grouply identity before accessing the network (instead of asking
for a password reset, which I foolishly did at first, to no avail). Another
feature to handle with care in the classroom is the "unified identity" that
Grouply promotes as a plus (true, it was stimes a drag to log into several Ning
networks) and the fact that you are taken "out" of your network without warning,
and all your "groups" and other "suggested" groups become available. In fact on
signing up I already had friendship requests from strangers.

Video embeds are allowed, but not uploads, unless you handle them as documents
(under 10 Mb). In order to comment, you have to refer to the "original message"
rather than the video itself.

Apparently 3 new tabs are available for non-premium members, which I had used
up, also apparently, I presume when importing the subgroups. Existing tabs can't
have their URLs edited.

The absence of a specific blogging feature (promised for the near future in the
Ning migration tool) is probably the greatest weakness. For the purposes of
preserving this Ning's content, I used the only RSS feed box available from the
home page to link to Posterous. Other applications such as Text or Html boxes
seem to be restricted to one as well.

Some applications for the Home page such as a tag cloud are announced as premium
features, though I was able to add it, I expect during some trial period.

A minor detail is that from one computer I was unable to edit tags, and from
another I was unable to access "messages" once I had tried to edit them, but i
attribute that to my IE7, or its settings. let's see if it improves tomorrow.

On the whole, esp. if Grouply can come up with a blogging feature, I consider it
a good migration option for Ning. As for setting up a brand new network, I
believe at present mixxt has more going for it, though I would need to review it
further.

I look forward to your comments on this and other alternatives to Ning.

Warm regards

Mariel Amez


--- In multilit@yahoogroups.com, "Glenn V" <vstevens@...> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm sorry I see that I didn't answer Nina's question. A long-tailed user is a
furry creature with a black twitching nose who types by jumping from key to key
...
>
> Just kidding, couldn't resist! Actually this is in reference to Chris
Anderson's book by that name in which he pointed out that the Internet makes it
possible to cater not only to the few at the high end of the market that consume
in high quantities, but also to the 'long tail' or niche interests that have
small audiences but there are so many of them that now that they have a voice
they are significant players in the Internet power distribution.
> You can see how that new distribution resembles a 'tail' here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail
>
> My article The Ning Thing was published at the end of the month and you can
see the link to the fixed version at http://tinyurl.com/ningthing. But at the
NingThing link you can see where I continue to dabble as new information comes
in.
>
> Mariel Amez sent me a link via Twitter of Kevin Hodgeson's take on Pearson
sponsorship of Nings. In her original msg in THIS thread she asked if anyone had
used Ning's archiving tool. When visiting Kevin's Meandering Mind I saw that he
has tried out this tool and placed complete instructions with screenshots here:
> http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/2010/07/03/how-to-archive-a-ning-site/
>
> I'm writing what I have been doing about saving our Ning at the bottom of the
NingThing link. Here's what I've done for the * Multiliteracies Ning at
http://multiliteracies.ning.com
>
> It has only 123 members so I applied for sponsorship by Pearson at the end of
June, but so far haven't heard from them apart from an email saying they were
ruminating on my request.
>
> I requested backup from Save My Ning on June 30, 2010 (and am also awaiting
their response)
>
> This turned out to be worth doing: I migrated all our Blogs to Posterous:
http://multiliteracies.posterous.com. This has successfully preserved our blog
posts, but in this particular blog, the original poster is not identified (it
appears to be me). But on the upside, each posting now has a URL that will stay
where it is a while longer.
>
> You can also get just your posts into a Posterous account. To do this you
start an account (or log on to one), download your postings from Ning, and then
merge them into an existing blog (I created http://multiliteracies.posterous.com
for that purpose).
>
> Nina Liakos ported just her own blog postings from Ning to Posterous in this
way, http://ninaevomlit2010.posterous.com/
>
> Incidentally I note that Mariel is from Rosario. I hope to be in Buenos Aires
on around July 12. I think Webheads are meeting there on July 14. On July 16 I
fly to Sao Paulo for BrazTESOL and go to Brasilia a week later, and I will be in
that country for a few weeks. On Aug 9 I return to Buenos Aires and again have a
couple weeks of free time. If anyone in Brazil or Argentina would like to meet
up, let me know. I like having excuses to travel around.
>
> Vance
>
>
> > On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:40 PM, Vance Stevens <vstevens@>wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi folks,
> > >
> > > Thanks Mariel for writing this list.
> > >
> > > I've finally managed to squeeze out some time between a busy end of
> > > September and a deadline at the end of this month and I'm working now on
> > > http://tinyurl.com/ningthing
> > >
> > > If you'd like to write on this document just let me know and > >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>