SILICON VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Glam Media, number one in reach in Lifestyle and the leading social media platform for professionals, today announced the release of the next generation Ning platform for professional social creators, with advanced new features that deliver a premium social and mobile experience to foster real community engagement. Glam today also introduces Glam Social, powered by Ning, for businesses and brands to manage their own social communities and fan pages.
Glam acquired Ning in December 2011 and with this new release has completed the integration of the platform into the Glam ecosystem, which fully combines Glam’s deep expertise in brand advertising with the leading and most scalable professional social media platform. Ning reaches more than 50 Million unique monthly active users (MAUs) and is growing at more than 2,000 new social networks created monthly—making Ning one of the top social media platforms alongside Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
For social creators, Ning now offers new social tools and a simple out of the box mobile experience, with built-in premium advertising and scalability for building very large and engaged social networks. For brands, Glam is introducing Glam Social to allow businesses to create, manage and track their own vibrant social communities in a highly customizable, content-rich environment as branded content becomes a more critical part of the media mix.
“The explosion of social platforms and the rapid adoption of smartphones are reshaping how people connect with each other, and creators and brands are looking for engaging ways to foster these meaningful conversations,” said Samir Arora, Chairman & CEO, Glam Media. “Ning’s platform gives social network creators and businesses the tools they need to drive purposeful interactions with the members that matter most while still supporting the larger social community on any topic.”
This Ning platform release includes several powerful new capabilities including:
Social Aggregator offers deeper integration opportunities and advanced tools to make Ning your social aggregator and hub for everything on the social web,
Social Mobile offers a configurable, out of the box HTML optimized solution that enables Ning Creators to seamlessly extend their community reach across all mobile interfaces, including smartphones and tablets,
Glam Social Ads on Ning enables Ning Creators to add Glam’s social brand advertising for brands to deliver engaging marketing campaigns within Ning diverse social communities,
Ning VIP offers the scalability, customization and support for large scale social networks.
Among the first adopters of this new platform is award-winning artist 50 Cent with his ThisIs50 community.
“50 Cent understood the future was in mobile and after the successful release last year of his own Twitter client, Uber50—which was downloaded more than 300k times—we put more focus on mobile development. With the marriage of Glam Media’s forward-thinking advertising capabilities, Ning’s innovative social networking platform and its aggressive expansion into mobile, Thisis50 is positioned for maximum user engagement and is primed for increased revenue through the implementing of strategic advertising integration,” said Corentin Villemeur, General Manager of Thisis50.
As part of this release, Glam is also rolling out Ning VIP—the most advanced subscription service for very large social network communities, starting at $1,000 a month—offering scale, design, and a premium service level that very active communities and brands require. Full details on Ning VIP can be found at www.ning.com/vip.
“Ning VIP gives us the scalability, security, and platform we need for our regional community sites,” said Kevin Brongers, Social Media Producer, FOX Sports Media Group, which is built on the Ning VIP platform.
The new platform features are scheduled to roll-out to existing and new Ning creators over the next few weeks and Glam Social will be available to brands and businesses in Q3 with subscription plans starting at $24.95 a month. A free 30-day trial is available at www.ning.com.
About Glam Media
Glam was founded in Silicon Valley in 2004 with the idea that people are the most influential filters for finding and sharing their most passionate interests. The founders pioneered the vision that professional digital social content would be both as engaging for consumers and as important to brand advertisers as traditional media. Our mission is to build the largest lifestyle media company in the world by leveraging our proprietary technology platform to help people create, discover, and share content that they love. At our core, we are an innovative technology company that develops products to enrich the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Today, Glam Media is #1 in Lifestyle, reaching over 240 million global monthly unique visitors, as reported by comScore. Glam Media is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Munich, London, Paris, Toronto, Mumbai, Pune and Seoul.