Ning Alternatives

Well voting is over and some people have been discussing what to do now that Ning is closing free services.  It is telling that people have been discussing it on Ning and via e-mail but not on Facebook!  Good thing Facebook lost, it doesn't look like Facebook was a good replacement for a discussion forum!

After exploring many services (about 25) and figuring out what we need/want to some degree from an administrators stand point our options now, I think, are:

• Leflora - more like an old school forum, old school look and set up
• Grouply - more like an online group, looks more like the Ning (has Ning import)
• Shout 'em - more like a private Twitter group, does cool things like Geotagging and posting from mobile devices (has Ning import)

Terri, our wonderful and amazing group moderator is checking to see which groups are open to her at her school (this is a must moderation wise) and I have created a group in all three services.  Please check out all three groups and vote on what you like!  Terri and I will look at the vote and what sites are easiest to moderate and maintain (help us out by joining and practice posting to the groups) and then do what we need to do to import the Ning to the new group and delete the unused groups.