A lot of Ning users are going to be very pissed off today with news that the host your own social network service is dumping free users.
CEO Jason Rosenthal, who took over the helm at Ning in March, told employees in an internal email that he had “taken a hard look at our business in the 30 days since I became CEO, and I’ve decided to focus the company 100 percent on our paid networks business.”
No word as to when the free accounts will be closed, with Rosenthal saying they would be phased out “soon” and that those who wanted to continue to use Ning would have to pay for the privilege.
Ning has been a quiet success story in the social networking world, growing to hundreds of thousands of social networks. However, free doesn’t equal profit, and as noted by Rosenthal the company needs to start making money, instead of losing it.
