Hoping to cash in further on Ning’s shuttering of its free version, competitor Grou.ps is upping the ante with the launch of “WinWin”, a referral program directly targeting so-called Ning exiles.
The service claims to have already migrated more than 50,000 Ning networks, making it the largest “do-it-yourself social networking platform”, and hopes to continue this trend by rewarding new converts and those who encourage others to follow suit. Specifically, Grou.ps will be dishing out credits which can be converted into a host of premium features such as extra bandwidth. The size of the reward is proportional to the size of the migrated network so the bigger the switcher, the more credits awarded to both the referrer and the owner of the converted network.
So, for example, a network with 10 to 99 members will be rewarded with 5 credits, 100 to 999 members equals 10 credits (enough for 100GB of extra bandwidth and other premium features, says the company) – right up to a much larger network with, say, 99,999 or more members giving 200 credits.
Grou.ps is also keen to point out that its Ning migration tool not only imports member profiles but also network assets, such as photos, videos, links, pages, calendar entries, blogs, etc., along with the network’s template. The company started offering similar syncing/migration functionality for Yahoo Groups users in March of this year.
Additionally, Grou.ps supports OpenSocial apps, another potential check box feature for Ning exiles, while the company cites tech conference Gnomedex and the hip-hop community Chaundon as two of its more high profile converts.
Competitor Grouply is also targeting Ning refugees with its own ‘Ning to Grouply’ migration tool.
Gou.ps was founded in early 2006 by Emre Sokullu and is headquartered in Palo Alto, U.S., with development offices in Istanbul, Turkey. The company, backed by Golden Horn Ventures, claims more than 6 million monthly unique visitors worldwide and 5.5 million registered users.