- This weekend – TechCrunch demonstrated once again how influential it is. I outline six lessons users, application developers, and container providers (e.g., Ning, MySpace, Facebook, Friendfeed and Second Life) must follow to minimize the risk for a divorce in a co-dependent relationship.
This short case study illustrates the risks of being in a co-dependent relationship, where a developer (Widget Laboratories) seems to lean on Ning and vice versa.
In an email to WL on August 2 (more than three weeks ago), CEO Gina Bianchini wrote:
“Our only goal is to have you build your products in such a way that doesn’t slow down the networks running your products or takedown the Ning Platform with what you’re doing. Both of those would result in us needing to shutdown WidgetLaboratory products and that’s has never been our first choice of options. Hopefully, you know this after 8 months of working with us.”
how Ning’s CEO Gina Bianchini sees it regarding 3rd party widgets and add-ons
In another email to Widget Laboratory on August 7, Bianchini wrote:
“If we have evidence other than our conversation last night that you are asking for username, password, and pin of other Network Creators on WidgetLaboratory, we will be put in the unfortunate situation of shutting down your network and widgets. We don’t want to do this. In fact, we’d like very much to work more closely together but we can only do so if everything you guys are doing is within the Terms of Service.”
publication of correspondence between WidgetLaboratory and Ning
TechCrunch states that:
“The emails taken as a whole show a pattern of emotional rants by WL, followed by reasoned responses by Ning. Frankly, if I was Ning I would have banned then a long time ago based on the harvesting of user credentials alone.”
TechCrunch – forgetting to scratch beyond the surface
Reading the e-mails one could get the impression that WidgetLaboratory appears to rant. Even if this were true, of primary importance is to find answers to two issues:
1) Did WidgetLaboratory (WL) violate user privacy?
2) Did WL applications use up too many of Ning’s system resources slowing down the service for customers?
Most details required to answer the above we were not given by either party. Nevertheless, some widgets or applications do require the storing of a username and password (e.g., chat feature offered) to make it work, does it not? That in itself does not violate privacy, does it? As well, all the material I came across does not specify how WidgetLaboratory’s applications slowed down Ning services for its customers. Ning also fails to provide details on this. My tests show that Ning is not a very fast application indeed. It matters little what time of day one uses it or from which location around the globe, that simple.
Unfortunately, without having detailed information about the above two points it is impossible to get a better understanding who has a case and who might not have one. Nevertheless, here are some of the lessons this case can teach us all. As a social network vendor, provider or user read these lessons carefully. You could pay a heavy price otherwise.
Six Risks that must be managed to assure value creation
1) This case illustrates the difficulty one faces in a co-dependent relationship. To those married – sounds familiar? Regardless of who is right, throwing mud escalates matters without allowing the parties to find a mutually acceptable solution. In turn, a nasty divorce means the container Ning shuts down the application developer WidgetLaboratory by removing its widgets from its social network site.
Naturally, this is bad for Ning clients and a very serious threat to WidgetLaboratory’s economic viability.
2) The blogosphere can help in spreading your side of the story fast but often – see TechCrunch “Don’t Post The Evidence Unless It Supports Your Case,” bloggers do not scratch beyond the surface.
What we do know is that as a party in any dispute or disagreement, before going public you should reflect and try to answer:
a) am I allowed to post complete evidence – if not (see also point 3) don’t post half the story because it raises more questions than it will answer; AND
b) c’est le ton qui fait la musique (long explanation – whenever you write e-mail, be polite, concise and sleep over it before hitting the send button — WidgetLaboratory failed on that one)
3) E-mails are like letters – private communication. In turn, going public by publishing a few e-mails could be a violation of trust in itself. In this case, it looks as if WidgetLaboratory violated Ning’s trust. In this case, WL did not behave in a way that would gives us much trust and confidence in working with them.
4) To learn from this disaster, Ning should provide:
a) a clear set of standards for 3rd party developers (e.g., how many network resources can the application draw upon, privacy and user rights), as well as
b) a testing suite with which application developers can test before going ahead putting up their applications.
Ning has so far failed to deliver on points 4a and 4b.
5) Create a standardized install process for both Ning (social network) and third party developers to use. For Ning and other ‘containers’ this means that long URLs where one must enclose one’s network name to activate/modify a feature should be outdated. In fact, this must be made available from the admin user interface offered to the application provider.
Unfortunately, once again Ning has failed to deliver on this point so far.
6) For an application developer like WidgetLaboratory there is this bitter after taste of having experienced a case, whereby the container (Ning) discovered the value of your widgets to its customers. In turn, Ning wanted control over these applications. What better way than pulling your chains a bit. Your response might just give me the excuse I need kicking you off the system eventually (see also above screenshot).
Ning has already promised to replace WidgetLaboratory’s applications with its own solutions. In fact, Ning started 2008-08-23 to program its own chat gadget to be released and put up for users by 2008-08-27 = just 4 days for designing, programming and testing before going to full public release including a weekend. This is quite an impressive feat of performance.
If the application is stable by Wednesday, however, we fear Ning has worked on this for a while longer than it wants us make to believe.
Does this suggest you should trust Ning as a partner?
My take on this
Both, Ning and WidgetLaboratory behaved in ways that does not strengthen trust between parties in any type of relationship it seems. Second, when washing one’s dirty laundry in public please, either provide the full facts and not just parts of it, or else keep quiet.
Finally, as an application provider, one has to think twice if such a dependency relationship as the one between Ning (container) and WL (application provider) is a good basis for a long-term business relationship. You are the judge, what are your thoughts on this?
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