Swyzzle Central

Using Swyzzle with a Ning Social Network

We recently built Ethel Zings (http://EthelZings.com), an Ethel Merman parody community, using Ning. If you haven't heard of Ning, it's a platform for creating your own social network web site with a blog, video and photo uploads and members. Right now, Ethel Zings has a couple blog entries and a small number of members. The "Ethel Zings Rock - Show #1" is a parody of Ethel Merman singing some of the finest rock and roll music. Take a look and let us know what you think.

Embedding a Swyzzle show in Ning

If you create a Ning network and want to embed Swyzzle shows, it's really simple. While you are in your Swyzzle account, go to Manage My Shows and select the show you want to embed. In the Share My Shows section, choose the size (anything up to 800 x 600 worked well). If you want the show to play as soon as the show loads, click the Autoplay box. Then click Create Embed Tag. Your embed code is ready to paste. Go to the Ning post and just paste it into the post. As soon as you publish your post the Swyzzle show will be visible. You can also add it to any page you create using the Add Page feature in Ning.

Our experience with Ning

Ning is a really nice tool for creating a social network. We used the free level, but added domain mapping for $4.95 per month (so it's EthelZings.com instead of EthelZings.ning.com). Here's a summary of what we learned:

Positive:

• It's easy to set up the network. You can choose your own templates and customize the look somewhat (we added our own header graphic)
• Inviting members is simple - you can select contacts from your accounts at gmail, yahoo, microsoft and aol.
• Blog entries are quick
• You can tell which members are on line
• Posting our Swyzzle show was really easy. Just paste the embed code from Swyzzle right into your post.

Negative:

• I wanted my last blog post to be open when people arrive at the site instead of having to hunt around for it
• Some of the things I expected to be under "Appearance" were under "Features"
• The Google ads take up a lot of real estate and cost $29.95 a month to remove - a bit pricey.

The negative comments aren't too bad, and we're pretty big fans. Go play with it if you have a chance.

Posting Your Multimedia Swyzzle Show in a Blog

We have been posting Swyzzle shows on different blogging sites to see which blogging sites are the best. So far, we tried out Blogger, WordPress and Ning (we use TypePad for this blog).

Ning

Ning is a social network site which lets you to create a community where any member can post to the group. It is a useful site if you want to be able to:

• invite members who have a shared interest
• let any member post to the blog
• schedule group events
• chat amongst the members
• start discussions topics
• use their RSS feed function
• add photos and videos

We were able to post a Swyzzle show to our Ning blog post with no problem.

WordPress

WordPress has two ways to use it's blogging tool. You can either host the blog on their site (WordPress.com) or you can use their software and host the blog on your server. I think most people do not want to take on hosting their own blog unless they are technically savvy.

Using WordPress.com, we created a nice looking blog within two hours of signing up. Then, we tried to post a Swyzzle show and learned WordPress doesn't let you post Flash objects. Period.

This was a bit of a shock, since WordPress is one of the most popular blogging sites. We requested a refund and it is on its way.

Blogger

Blogger is also very easy to set up and it's simple to add a Swyzzle show.

TypePad

We've posted many Swyzzle shows on our TypePad blog. It's a no brainer. TypePad has excellent support. It's a little more expensive than WordPress, but, as we all know you get what you pay for.

New Look for Swyzzle Home Page

Swyzzle's home page has a new look! We've designed the web site to help our visitors better understand what we do and why it's creating a stir.