Since Martingale’s technology solutions are a natural continuation of Ning’s, their sale two days ago to Glam Media for $150 million is noteworthy.  Groups on the Martingale platform are much more tightly integrated - each group has access to all relevant content and individual group members are able to specify what content they want to see or have hidden from them (for example, they can specify that they want to see only content pertaining to Circus toys made out of Bakelite in the 1950s in France AND Redline Hot Wheels).

We have carried out a number of experiments on the Ning platform and learned immensely from it.  In 2005, when we had not yet created Martingale, Ning was stringing together different web services to create a "social application”.  Later they allowed users to build their own social networks but found that most of those failed since they did not achieve critical mass.  On the Martingale platform you can have a very small group that can from the start have large quantities of highly relevant content.

Also of interest was when the company changed from its fremium model to a paid model.  At the time, Ning had been hoping that 9,000 of its 250,000 free members would make the switch to paid. Instead 50,000 did.  This made the company, with its more than 100 employees, profitable.  As such, it is interesting that we already have more than 110,000 members on our various group sites, with more than 2,500 new members in the last 30 days alone.

As it is we have a better model with no plans to move to subscriptions.  We think that enabling our members to trade in a eBay 2.0 environment will provide more and better revenues without the alienation of charging the very same people that add content to our sites.  So we wish Glam Media/Ning all the best and at the same time offer their collectible groups a new home, not quite as glam but with a much better fit and more content!