Why go from Ning to Grou.ps / Grouply vs Buddy Press

I'm trying to determine the best Learning Network to move to from Ning and would love to hear from those who made the move why they picked Grou.ps/Grouply (and the like i.e. Spruz, WackWall, Webs, Big
Tent, SocialGo, Mixxt) vs a solution like BuddyPress (and the like i.e. Elgg, Drupal, Moodle,
Joomla, LovdByLess, Pligg).

Why did (are you planning to go) the pre-packaged route vs open-source or vice versa?

Thanks!
Lisa

Tags: learning, networks, ning

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Permalink Reply by Deborah J. Boyd on August 12, 2010 at 7:36am

Actually you may want to consider staying with NING. Pearson, yes the same company that does textbooks, has promised to support any education related web site on NING. NING has also just announced that they will let you have one year free to get started toward one of their paying plans. The cheapest plan is $20/mo. Now here is what you do. If you get 100 people interested in your web site that comes to $0.20/mo/person. The second option you can have is to sell something to make money for the web site. Picture frames, coffee mugs, etc. Once you get an original design or picture you contract with the manufacturer to do fulfillment and they make money as well as you. The more your items tie into the theme of your web site the more successful you will be. You can also get most of the mfg. people to do a bulk discount so a teacher could sell them for a local fundraiser and again you get a win/win/win outcome.

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Nielsen on August 25, 2010 at 12:30pm

Hi Deborah,

I was aware of the Pearson option but that's of no use to those of us with thriving networks with more than 150 members. There are plenty of free choices that I'm more interested in investigating.

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Permalink Reply by Emre Sokullu on August 12, 2010 at 9:25am

Hi Lisa,

You can read my comments on this issue, including pre-packaged vs open source issue, here: http://www.emresokullu.com/blogs/item/thoughts-on-ning-exodus-and-g...

Hope this helps. Best,

--
Emre Sokullu
GROU.PS, Chief Grou.pie

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Kaiser on August 13, 2010 at 10:13am

Thanks for the post. I have been thinking about setting up some networks for the teachers in the schools where I work. This gave me a good base to choose from. After looking at all of these sites, I am probably going to use Grou.ps or something similar. There are a few issues that may arise with a web-based site. Occasionally they go down. However, there is no installing or admin time on my part. I just set it up and let it go. With a network that is installed on each computer, like Moodle or Joomla, I am going to be adding more admin time to my work load that could be used elsewhere.