Who says business isn’t personal? Ning.com & WidgetLaboratory.com proved it is

Ning.com and WidgetLaboratory.com are still trying to untangle the mess of last Friday morning. We take a step back and different look at how this business deal turned personal and emotional. While a lot of networks on Ning and thousands of users have been effected things have started to become more clear with communications released from the past.

In light of recent events on our social networking platform, Ning, it’s interesting to note the fierce interaction between supporters of WidgetLaboratory and Ning. Emotions flare between the slightest of remarks, assumptions are made, which in turn, fuel the fire for other discussions. As Peter Morris, The Business Shrink, says, “Business is personal.”

TechCrunch, along with BizShrinkOnline.com, has been following the activities and development of the feud between widget maker, WidgetLaboratory and social networking platform, Ning.com. While TechCrunch has kept a more public presence, BizShrinkOnline.com has been researching the facts, reading the emotional rants of both sides, and finding out possible alternatives to our own predicament as a result of WL’s shutdown. Since last Friday, Ning has been scrambling to offer replacement services and techniques for gaining back some of the major features that WL offered. BizShrinkOnline.com relied heavily on WL’s widgets to easily customize our navigation system and create custom pages within the Ning platform, the most important being our store front! With the loss of tools and content, the question remains: Who is responsible?

This debate continues to flourish across blog posts and forums for both sides. One such blog compared the situation to a rocking chair. If you were the user sitting in a rocking chair (WL widget) and the rug (Ning) were suddenly pulled out from under you and the chair broke, would you sue the chair manufacturer? An interesting point of view. And here is where emotional and business perception come into play. How are we viewing the situation? What are we using as a comparison model? My response to the user was that this is an incorrect scenario for what has happened. More was involved than just a 2-part scenario. Something a little more correct might be:

Let’s use a roller rink as our scenario. The roller rink (Ning) houses many rollerskaters (network creators). If we choose to buy a special pair of rollerskates (WL widget) to use in the roller rink, it is definitely our choice and right to do so…within the guidelines of the roller rink (TOS.) In fact, as a skater, we go so far as to buy accessories to decorate our skates (customize). Then we build up a nice little fan base on the sidelines that come to watch us skate with our customized skates. But what if those skates scratched the rink? Caused the rink to behave poorly for other skaters, in turn affecting the way their fans appreciate them? More importantly, what if it was just the PERCEPTION of the roller rink owners (Ning) that our skates were doing that, regardless of whether or not they were. Would it not be in their right to ban any rollerskates made by the company from which we purchased? It says as clear as day on the rules posted near the door! I would say yes. Unfortunately, though it would put us out the time and effort it took to make those skates look great and acquire our fan base (and there’s) by going to that rink, it is clearly within the rights of the rink to ban us from wearing them, especially if they think it could affect the other rollerskaters going around the rink. Worse for them, I COULD take my entire fan base away from their rink.

Now, if they ban us from bringing in our skates, there’s really nothing we can do about it. We are not rollerskate makers, so we can’t make a new set of skates. But in this case, at least we still HAVE our skates and can possibly customize them for use at another rink. But in this case, we don’t have our skate. Essentially, the manufacturer has them. What’s being discussed in many of the forums is the issue of reimbursement. Who should be responsible? Well, the purchase was made from WL and now we no longer have a product. Not WL’s fault (or maybe it was), but they still have our money and we’re left with nothing. The onus clearly lies with WL to make it right with the users, right? Not necessarily. But to their credit, WL has made it publicly clear that all widgets will be made available as open source code for anyone who wants it along with migration tools and support. Backend services will be run from their servers, taking the load off any of Ning’s servers. Now I’ve got my skates back in my hands! There’s the solution. However, a question of fairness raises its head. If I’ve paid for my widget coding, should anyone coming into the game AFTER me be able to get it for free? After all, if you were to purchase that new pair of skates, find out they were banned, then discovered the manufacturer could FIX them in some way as to use them at your roller rink, that’s great. But is it fair that the next guy who comes into the roller rink get a free pair? Shouldn’t I get a refund? As was pointed out in another forum, cable companies do it all the time. You pay for a premium channel, it gets old or a newer channel comes along, then they offer it for free. There is a caveat here. Those cable users had a choice. A choice of umpteen other channels to choose from. On Ning, only one other well known scripting company was out there providing these kinds of tools, and according to most users, paled in comparison. So without a choice, it’s hard to say that we are being treated fairly by not getting some type of reimbursement.

These and many other questions still lie in wait for an answer from Ning. One in particular, if we’re still using the roller rink scenario, is what happens if I buy my skates from a different company. Do I still run the same risk of losing my ability to skate at that rink? What if I bring in my altered skates from the same company? Will they look at that and simply shut me down for using skates that they had previously banned?

Ning still remains stoic in their responses to the issue, though they are trying to find workable solutions to many of the issues raised by network creators. Is it fast enough? No. Is it an effort to reconcile. Absolutely. Since the occurance, I’ve been in touch with the Ning support staff throughout the weekend and even as early as 4:20AM today. This alone should restore some of the faith lost in their sincerity to support their customers.

When it comes to business, many choices are made based on facts and data made available to them. Ning chose to act quickly based on facts and data made available to them from their own team. Their actions greatly affected thousands of users and network creators. It could have been handled better to reduce these effects. At the same time, WL has taken it upon themselves to release sensitive documents prior to the occurance. Correspondence between the CEO’s of both companies detail the discussions prior to the shutdown of WL. From a strategic point of view, this may have been a boon to WL’s argument. However, upon closer inspection, you can see that the rants of WL are more emotional than professional.

Driving factors like having your business shut down are a common cause for emotional and sometimes irrational outbursts. But without these passionate moments, where business owners fight to keep their business alive, or professionals rally around one team or the other, there would be no competition, no purposeful business. Business is personal. It’s the sweat and effort you put into creating a positive end result. And when that end result goes astray, the time invested, both emotional and professional, come crashing down and leave you drained and wanting.

What is your opinion? Have you ever been in a situation similar to this? How did you handle it? Were others affected?

You can follow some of the discussions at TechCrunch.com and on WidgetLab’s own blog, WidgetLaboratory.com. If you would like to join the network creators forum at Ning, you can follow more discussion at networkcreators.ning.com.