Intodit Wants to be Ning, Can’t Do It

Intodit came across my radar this week as a new platform for easy group creation. I am already a devoted fan of Ning as a platform for creating and managing groups, so I was interested to see someone else's interpretation of the concept. After checking out the Intodit platform I can say that they missed many of the key features that make Ning so popular.

The first issue I had with Intodit was one of appearance. I've been spoiled by the sleek interface of Ning for quite some time now, having first been introduced to it for NaBloPoMo last year. In comparison Intodit was clunky and had a distinct smell of the older web. Not even a handful of navigation buttons with rounded corners and "widget boxes" could save it.

To give credit where credit is due, their user interface wasn't hard to use. I was able to get my account up and running in minutes and set up my first group with ease. I was a bit annoyed that Intodit insists on photos to go with the groups and accounts during set up. Sometimes I'd rather find the perfect illustration of my group a bit later.

Intodit doesn't make it easy to find new people to add to your group. Sure, it has the now standard import feature tied to your email accounts and instant message, but I'm often creating groups to attract people I'm not familiar with to an activity or event, and there was no easy way to seek out like minded people on Intodit. Tags are useful to a point, but in the end they are a clunky and difficult way to locate what or who you need.

Overall Ning still reigns supreme for me as the group platform of choice. Without some of the key features that Ning has, like integrated drag and drop widgets that put the features right on the home page of your group, Intodit falls short. More, Intodit is missing some things I like about Ning , like a live event calendar and a way to add RSS feeds, user photos and videos to the page. Frankly, unless Intodit steps it up and adds more to their platform, they don't stand a chance at knocking Ning off its spot as the top of the group platform genre.