Ning: When Will Andreessen Ditch Google AdSense?
By DONNA BOGATIN • May 14th, 2008 • Category: BIG PICTURE“The man doth protest to much“?
Upon Google’s pre-announcement of its own turnkey, 60-second, make any Website its own social network with a simple line of FREE Googley code, I was the first to point out that Ning’s touted “half-billion valuation“ took a haircut.
SEE: Google Friend Connect Rains on Ning $500 million Social Network Parade
Marc Andreessen now takes to his blog for a long winded expose in attempting to defend why “obviously,“ the notion that Google‘s new “Friend Connect is “somehow competitive to Ning” is “odd.” Andreessen spins Google’s dedicated, universal, instant social network machine into a mere third-party embeddable Flash widget on steriods, handy for pumping up the social networking power at social networks, such as Ning!
Andresseen incredulously, or conveniently, ignores that Google deliberately designed its friendly, connecting widgets so they could expressly be plugged into any old independent, stand-alone hobby html Website for instant social network magic, NO NEED TO CREATE A SEPARATE SOCIAL NETWORK ANYWHERE ELSE, such as at Ning.
It is not surprising that Andreessen would dismiss out of hand the world wide power of Google to displace Ning, partner Gina Bianchini dissed the power of world wide power houses MySpace and Facebook too, SEE: Google Friend Connect Rains on Ning $500 million Social Network Parade
Andreessen nevertheless inadvertently acknowledges Google Friend Connect IS a direct replacement alternative option for Ning. Andreessen on what Ning is:
A service for creating your own social network for anything
Google , thanks to Friend Connect, makes any individual Websites its own social network for anything.
In typical Google fashion, the Googleplex is at once a competitor and a partner to Ning. Andreessen shares he is still “very happy” with all of Google’s Open Social moves.
Andreessen is apparently not so happy with Google’s monopoly-like search share:
It‘s not clear that there‘s any benefit to having everyone on the same search network, unlike operating systems, Andreessen is cited at a conference in California.
REALLY, Ning has embraced the big, bad, omnipresent Google Ad Sense network!
“Obviously“, though, if Ning could ditch AdSense for its own proprietary, independent, wholly monetizable advertising platform, it would.
SEE: “Ning: $60 million VC for Facebook Fight: AdSense Optional”
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