SixApart recently announced that they will be closing Vox, their hosted blog service, at the end of September. Earlier this year, Ning announced it would be moving to a “paid users only” model, leaving many communities looking for new homes online. What’s a site owner to do when free (as in beer) services disappear? Look for open source replacements, of course!
The good news like it stipulates clearly in the InMotion Hosting review, running a website does not have to mean running a server anymore. WordPress.com, the hosted, free (as in beer) version of the free (as in speech and beer) and open source WordPress blog software, can import your Vox blog. To replicate your Ning site, consider Drupal Gardens (if you want to avoid running a server), or Drupal Commons (if you’re up for managing a server). Migrating from Ning to Drupal is not as simple as Vox to WordPress, but some have done it:
- Migrate from Ning to Drupal via WordPress->BuddyPress->Drupal (!)
- Migrating from Ning to Drupal (Not a tutorial but pointer to User Import, Feeds, Table Wizard, and Migrate modules – which one could use together to import a Ning site)
Unfortunately I don’t think there is yet a straightforward way to get from Ning to Drupal Gardens. Gardens exports sites but doesn’t (currently) import them.
The key is that in either case, you’ve got long term flexibility. You can always export your WordPress.com blog when you’re ready to move to self-hosted (giving you more flexibility with plugins and customizations but necessitating a hosting account or server space somewhere). Drupal Gardens gives you the same option, allowing you to export your Gardens site (users, content, and all) when you’re ready to move to managing your own Drupal install.
I think it’s also a good idea to point out the Ning to WordPress with BuddyPress option that many users are switching to. This gives people the option to move their Ning site to a self-hosted WordPress installation. http://ma.tt/2010/04/ning-to-buddypress/
Yes – I think the conversion to Drupal actually goes through BuddyPress en route. Might make sense to stop there . . .
Create Your Social Network Today And Start Connecting With Family, Friends, and Colleagues… http://www.sysmoo.com
ok, not so much a comment as spam. Anyone know anything about Sysmoo?
Anyone from Sysmoo listening? Tell us why we should consider sysmoo . . .
Yes we are listening you should consider sysmoo.com because we have a great site we put together for people to use and we have a lot of themes you can use to customize your site and make it more personal for you and your audience.
@John
Hello John
We are excited to provide you with the ultimate suite of tools for building
your own social network. The Sysmoo platform makes running your own
social network simpler and more efficient than ever, enabling you to
fully customize your network, easily generate advertisements, share offers
with other networks, create detailed reports, monitor members, track data
accurately, make changes instantly, and maximize your revenues. We also have a plugin ” Premium Users Only” that will import your network from Ning to Sysmoo and if that doesn’t get you excited. What if we told you that you can setup your social network absolutely FREE. That’s right, so what are you waiting on get started today!
Fredrick Turner
CEO/Co-Founder
Sysmoo – The Social Network Company
http:www.sysmoo.com
This post gives the light in which we can observe the reality. this is very good a single and gives indepth data. thanks for this nice report
Thank you for taking the time to speak about this, I’m fervently about this and i also take pleasure in studying this topic. Please, while you gain information, please update this website with more information. I’ve discovered it very helpful.