We’re happy to report that by the end of this week a new mobile experience will be rolled out to all Ning Networks. This upgrade is a complete re-write of the old Ning mobile experience. It’s built-in, completely free, and offers a lot more options for driving activity.

The contrast between the old and new couldn’t be more different. The old mobile interface was originally released around the same time Apple unveiled their App Store. We’ve been upgrading the mobile version regularly over time, but we knew it was high time for a thorough rebuild and redesign. We chose future-friendly HTML5 because it allows us to create a great-looking experience across numerous mobile devices. We were able to create something that’s high quality and that provides a frictionless experience for users. And it’s an excellent base for adding more to the mobile version down the road. Let’s take a look at a few things the new Ning Mobile offers.

A better app-like experience for your members

The old and new are radically different, but the look of the new probably won’t throw you for a loop. It’s designed in a familiar app-like way. It provides the same kind of swiping and tapping gestures most people are used to performing with their iOS and Android devices. It’s optimized for smartphones so your members can access it easily with the devices they already use every day. You won’t need any advanced design skills or a $100 Apple App Store developer’s license to publish, either. The new mobile version will be consistent and running in the background all the time. Most important: It’s very stable.

More pages, more options, new choices

While the old version didn’t provide many options for customization, the new Ning Mobile lets Ning Creators choose which features and pages they want to appear — in the order they prefer. There’s also many more features available in the new mobile experience. You can add pages to display Latest Activity, Members, Blogs, Photos, Forum, a member’s Profile Page, Groups, Events, an RSS feed, and even custom HTML pages. This greatly expands a Ning community’s mobile presence and possibilities, and we’re excited to watch as the entire Ning Platform adopts this new mobile version.

Most of the administrative settings will probably be pretty self-explanatory. A few details to keep in mind:

• Design details: The Ning Mobile site is standardized for design consistency, but there are a few branding options for Ning Creators to take advantage of. You can upload a logo to replace the name of a network in the header or change the background color of the header. A preview mode is also provided to see what it all looks like before committing to a change.
• Choose your pages: Ning Creators can choose the pages they wish to display and how the data on the pages is sorted (e.g., by “Latest Activity”). Some pages include choices about whether to show or hide preview-style content. Don’t like the order of pages? Ning Creators can drag and drop them and reorder them to their satisfaction. The first one listed will function as the “Main Page.”
• Opt-out option: Don’t want a mobile version? We’ve got you covered. If a Ning Creator removes all of the pages from the Mobile section of the dashboard, visitors will instead be shown the desktop version of your Ning Network.
• Back-out option: We’ve included a “Desktop View” for any member or visitor who wants to switch off the mobile version and rely on the standard desktop view.

As always, we’re big fans of our customers’ opinions, so let us know what you think about the new mobile version, either here or on the Creators Network. How have your members used the mobile version of Ning in the past? What can we do to help make their mobile experience even better going forward — and make your community even more vibrant and active?

This week, we’re excited to be rolling out a revamped Help Center. Huzzah! This is a project we included in the 2012 Ning Product Roadmap, and one that is very much a group effort by the Ning advocacy team.

When our product managers and engineers prepare to roll out a new feature for the Ning Platform, it’s the Ning advocacy department’s job to document the nitty-gritty details. We dive in and quiz everyone involved about nearly every detail of the upcoming product release. We take the answers to our many “okay-but-can-it-do-this” questions and marry it to the wealth of content that lives on our internal wiki. We combine it all — from first spec to wireframes to release notes — to create articles for our knowledgebase; a.k.a., the “Help Center.”

This is the fourth incarnation of the Ning Help Center. The previous Help Center has served us very well — and for a long time. For the past three or four years, it’s been a highly trafficked site visited by tens of thousands of Network Creators each month. The previous Help Center had an understated elegance to the design that encouraged customers to search and find what they needed. Over time, though, the content in the knowledgebase grew. Finding helpful articles through search wasn’t enough. This has been especially true for brand-new Network Creators, who have often requested a way to browse content based on their skill level. First-timers, in particular, are better served by introductory videos, a list of Top 10 Newbie Questions, and a downloadable PDF launch plan. They need guidance and friendly advice more than they need to find out if the new Chat lets you block out swear words. (BTW: It does!)

Here are a few of the high-level goals that guided the Help Center redesign:

Make it more friendly

First and foremost, we wanted to make the home page and everything that sits beneath it much more visual. We needed visual cues, FAQ lists for complex articles, asides and tips, the ability to put different types of content on a page, etc. It needs to reflect the always-changing document it actually is, and it should have the personality and “Ning Voice” that we’ve always cultivated in our Creators community and elsewhere.

Better navigation, better organization

We absolutely knew customers would enjoy more options for discovering content, and we definitely wanted a step up from asking customers to search and find. We created an understandable top navigation scheme; an always-available feature list for drilling down by feature; quick access to our often-used troubleshooting articles; exposed tags for those who use them; inviting landing pages for special topics; an attractive home-page slider with revolving content that can easily be changed to announce new product releases; and much more. Most important: We now have the flexibility to change all of this as needed.

Consolidate our content

We took this opportunity to unify our popular Best Practices articles, Inspiration gallery, and Getting Started guide under one umbrella. Previously, this content was distributed in different locations. Now, nearly everything that isn’t part of the Creators Community is located in the Help Center. Long-time Network Creators may have seen some of this additional content, but now it’s all in one place for everyone to access.

Unleash our advocates’ expertise

Our old system was a bit of a bear for us to update, so we wanted to make it incredibly easy for every Ning advocate to jump in and make a quick change on the fly. Further, we want to encourage our advocates to get creative and really share their expertise. They speak to customers every day, and we want to give them more power to immediately add new content to the Help Center based on specific feedback from our customers.

Those were a few of our main goals, and we think we’ve got a great start on making the Help Center more friendly and usable. Take a look at the old and new home pages, side-by-side:

And, take a gander at one of our most popular articles, which covers the complex task of setting up a custom domain:

It’s a marked improvement. Of course, this migration to a new Help Center is just a beginning and not the end. We still have more to create. Now that all of our advocates can get in there and add new content, here’s a few more things we may be doing going forward:

• Add more examples of super-succesful networks to the Inspiration gallery and divide it into deeper categories (e.g., education, business, craft niches, etc.). Sometimes, people like to just browse through other networks to see how other people do things.
• Incorporate some of the best tips from the Creators Network into the Help Center. Every Friday afternoon, we send out a newsletter to all members of the Creators Network that includes the top tips of the week from the community. This is the type of content we think can be graduated to the Help Center so everyone can reap the benefits of these excellent shared tips.
• Our screencasts have always been well-received, and we’d like to create new ones for more complex topics like adding a custom header, fooling around with CSS, or setting up Google Webmaster tools. Screencasts are time-intensive to create, but by watching closely how people use the new Help Center, we can surely identify spots where a video walk-through would be useful.
• Include articles about using outside tools like Google Alerts, Firebug, free online image editors, outside polling services, etc.; anything we can “review” for you and show you how third-party tools can be easily used in conjunction with your Ning Network.
• Provide ready-made content for Network Creators to take and use like a “Welcome Center” or “About Us” HTML page; Broadcast Message templates you can copy and paste; and perhaps a Mini Help Center for your own network that’s as brand-free as possible and that covers the basics for your members; things like that which can make creating content easier for you.

Those are just a few of the ideas we have for this next generation of the Help Center. Feel free to let us know your thoughts and feedback, particularly about how those last few things should work — or whatever else you think would help you find and get information you need to help you build and grow your Ning Network.

Our Product Roadmap this year is rolling along smoothly. Today, we’re happy to be releasing another project that we think will be very useful: a whole bunch of new sign-up and sign-in options. Let’s get right to it.

Let Members Join with LinkedIn and Windows Live

We’ve heard a lot of requests from Network Creators who want additional sign-up/sign-in options. You’ll be happy to hear that Social Sign In now includes both LinkedIn and Windows Live, which will be great news for business-focused networks and many international networks (e.g., Windows Live is huge in Brazil). The set-up for these will be very similar to Facebook and Twitter options; as the Network Creator, you’ll need to create an app for this purpose by entering your own LinkedIn or WindowsLive credentials.

Ready to create yours? Here are the Help Center articles for LinkedIn and for Windows Live.

Sign-up redirection

Want to send new members somewhere besides the Main Page — where they currently land after signing up? This is another request we’ve heard over time — to be able to redirect members to their own profile page or to a very specific page that a Network Creator has created to serve as a welcome landing page. Now, Ning Plus and Pro Network Creators have the option to send new members to either the Main Page, their own profile page (MyPage), or a custom URL.

This custom URL can be an external URL if you need to integrate your network with another web property. For example, Pro networks may want to send new members to an external web application that makes use of the Ning API to retrieve that new member’s information and register them before sending them back to the network.

We hope this will give you a few added options for customization of your new-member experience. Check out this Help Center article about these new redirection options for all the details.

Mix, match or remove sign-up / sign-in

You will now see that your options for sign up and sign in are split, and that “native” network sign in and sign up are included as options. This will allow you to turn off specific services for new members while allowing existing members to continue to sign in to the network, or to do things like limit all new members to Facebook or LinkedIn if it better matches your network’s theme and aims, or if you’d like your members to be a little less anonymous than they otherwise could be.

There’s an additional option here, one that won’t appeal to most Network Creators but that can be powerful for sites that are, for example, less about socializing and more about publishing. That option is to completely remove all sign-ups. If you make this choice, all invite options will be removed and no new members will be able to sign up. This might be an attractive choice if your network is focused on publishing, for example, and not social networking.

Want the full skinny on this new sign-up/sign-in split? Read all about it in this Help Center article.

At Ning, we’ve long believed in giving you and your members the flexibility to share and converse with one another in whatever means is optimal for your community – and today we’re launching a major upgrade to one of our most popular features: Chat.

We’ve rebuilt the new Chat from the ground-up, meaning we took a fine-toothed comb at how Chat should work with your 2012 expectations of web technology. The new Chat is made using HTML5, expanding the speed, options and customizations available to you through the feature. HTML5 also means that the new Chat is also now available on iPad and iPhone, Android-powered devices, and many of the newer mobile platforms available today.

Besides the updates we’ve made under the hood, we’ve also improved the readability as you use Chat. We’ve consolidated on white space, meaning you’ll see more of the conversation without the need to scroll through the past. Posts are grouped together, and appear under the same timestamp, name and avatar. After 1 minute of inactivity, we’ll add a new timestamp, so that you’ll know when the conversation left off and picked up again.

We’ve also added more controls and customizations with Chat. Its appearance will match the standard font used on your Ning Network, and Chat also adopts your network’s color scheme. Much in the same way you can use the Language Editor to make tweaks and customize the language across your Ning Network, you can do the same with the new Chat. Appearance customizations are now available for Chat with CSS. You now also have a universal and easy way to toggle Chat’s notification sounds on or off, and even a way to upload your own sound to be used to notify you and members of new Chat activity.

There are 4 new and improved displays for Chat: bar, module, full page and pop-out, giving you and your members the ability to easily show and hide chat messages according to individual preferences. With the updated new Chat bar, we also now support a new and improved pop-out chat, which will allow Chat to be ever-present even as you and your members navigate around your Ning Network and the web.

You no longer have to toggle between the network-wide chat and one-on-one chats. Now, when a one-on-one chat is started, a new private window will open up and you’ll be up and running in a private chat. You can pop-out the private chat or let it stay in the Chat bar.

As the Ning Creator, an admin or a chat moderator, you’ll see an “x” next to any chat post. You’ll be able to delete the post, and temporarily suspend the member from Chat. A member’s suspension from Chat can range from 15 minutes to 24 hours – it’s up to you. You and your members can also choose to ignore chat posts by specific members. This means that you won’t receive private messages and posts by anyone you’ve ignored, even in the Main Room.

Want to know more? Check out our new Ning Help Center articles that explain all the details about the new Chat:

• Introduction to Chat
• Get to Know the Chat Bar
• Control the Display Options for Your Chat Feature
• Moderate Chat on Your Ning Network
• View the Online Members in Chat

We’d like to thank all of the beta-testing Ning Creators who gave the new Chat a whirl and provided us with great feedback as we iterated this new feature. We’ll continue to take feedback from you and would love to know what you think. Feel free to comment below or on this Creators group. Happy chatting!

One consistent theme we’ve heard from our Ning Creators is how important it is to be able to create the social experience that’s right for their communities. We have a diverse customer base and every Ning Network is unique – some may center around community listening while others may focus on event organizing or revenue generation.

Back a few months ago, we launched Paid Access as our first optional add-on feature to provide Ning Creators with more options to customize their social experience. Today, we’re taking a further step to give you more flexibility to add features that are important to your community without requiring you to upgrade to a more expensive plan. Four Add-On features are now available individually for a set monthly fee: Groups, Events, Branded Music Player and Branded Video Player. If you’re a Mini customer, you now have the option of adding one or more of these features to your current plan. If you’re a Plus customer, you already have access to Groups and Events; you’ll now have the option to add a Branded Music Player and / or a Branded Video Player.

Interested in learning more? You can check out the new “Add-Ons” link on your Dashboard menu. We have more Add-On features planned, so let us know which additional features you’d like to see in the comments below.

Do your members speak multiple languages? Make them feel right at home with a new feature now on your Ning Network: Language Settings for Groups.

With Language Settings for Groups, group creators and admins can choose the language for particular groups on the “Edit Group” page, and all parts of the group’s interface will appear in that language. When participating in a group with its language set to French, for example, phrases like “Started by” or action links like “Favorite” will be translated to “Créé par” and “Favori.” Even better: All email notifications received from participating in the group will be in French, too.

This is perfect for language-orientated groups on your Ning Network, like the French-speaking group on Ning Creators. Members already post in French, but they previously were forced to use an English interface. With this new option, they’ll have a much more native and comfortable experience within the group.

Even better, the portions of the user interface that are part of your Ning Network as a whole — the footer, your tabs, the right column — will remain untouched in your network’s default language. Member-generated content won’t change either, remaining in whatever language it was posted in.

Admin Experience

Network Creators and admins are responsible for their Ning Networks, and they often carefully review new posts throughout their communities. Of course, it could be confusing to try to manage a group if the management tools are in another language. Not everyone might know, for example, that “Supprimer” is the button to click to delete a French group.

To maintain a great and consistent experience, Network Creators or administrators will see all groups in the native network language. Additionally, they will see an informational banner at the top of the group telling them what language the group is using, and allowing Network Creators and administrators to see the group in the custom language, if they wish.

Network Creators and admins can click “View sample” to see the group in the custom language if they want to check out how the group appears to its members. A group’s language can be changed at any time from the group’s Options tab, where all editing of groups is normally done.

Because this feature is experimental and a significant change to the way groups, languages and emails work, we’ve launched it via Ning Labs. That’s the page on your Dashboard where you can activate experimental features as we prepare them for launch. You can toggle this feature on or off via Ning Labs, but it’s off by default.

We’d love your feedback on this new product. We hope this feature will lay the groundwork to eventually providing a language setting at the member level, giving an even better experience for your international and foreign-speaking members. Merci!