Evil Genius <evilgenius@widgetlaboratory.com>

WidgetLaboratory Issues

August 2, 2008 7:48:45 PM CDTgina@ning.comEvil Genius <evilgenius@widgetlaboratory.com>, Mick <mick@widgetlaboratory.com>Hi Gina,Though I realize that things are very busy there this week, we believe that it would be mutually beneficial to examine some ofthe ways that Ning and WidgetLaboratory interact, so that we can continue to promote the growth of both of our organizations.Many of these issues are somewhat time sensitive.To wit:1) The sharing of information information, in advance of any network changes by Ning;2) The manner of reference by Ning staff to WidgetLaboratory or our products;3) The removal of any further "finger pointing" for technical issues between our support staff;We're fairly certain that you are aware of our membership size and product distribution. You must therefore realize that theactions of Ning in cooperating with WidgetLaboratory have a direct effect on most of your major network customers, becausethey utilize WidgetLaboratory products in a significant way. Likewise, your major Ning clients are all reliant uponWidgetLaboratory at this point for advice and support, since they utilize our products to build their networks.We have remained true to our word from December of 2007 when we pledged to be a benevolent and positive influence on theNing community. With our explosive growth and penetration into your network, we believe this to be true now more than ever.Every client of ours is given a sales pitch on the benefit of building their platform on Ning. We believe that WidgetLaboratoryhas contributed significantly to the growth and popularity of Ning over any other platform.While we do not ask for any favors (as usual), we do ask that Ning give us normal and "reasonable" technical support that isstandard industry practice, so that you do not adversely effect your OWN customer base. Almost all of the issues that havearisen from Ning's infrastructure changes and difficulties have resulted in your customers coming to WidgetLaboratory forassistance. When this occurs, we have always attempted to be diplomatic and ask for the patience of the end-user.On the other hand, we have received very little in the way of constructive assistance from Ning, and we have been put on "foolserrands" by your staff again and again (like chasing down static images that are not even utilized). On Thursday, when Ningcompletely changed your entire framework (dojo)

without any advanced warning whatsoever

, it completely broke most ofour product-line. We asked for help and received no response.

What was the benefit there?

We were then left holding thebag to answer to Ning clients as to why Ning broke their WidgetLaboratory products?We are pretty certain that you have very little personal concern or regard for WidgetLaboratory. Why should you? Perhaps youshould be concerned, however, that your present method of leaving us out of the loop, having customer support staff removeour products from customer sites without permission, and blaming us for any and all Ning-caused problems, is counter-productive.

This behavior leaves us with no choice but to explain the true facts to your own customers as to what is really the cause of their "issues".

How would that help our mutual interests?We appreciate your anticipated cooperation.Thank you,Spence

Ning widgets and solutions for work and for play!

http://www.WidgetLaboratory.com

"Gina Bianchini" <gina@ning.com>

RE: WidgetLaboratory Issues

August 2, 2008 8:32:25 PM CDT"Evil Genius" <evilgenius@widgetlaboratory.com>"Jay Parikh" <jay@ning.com>

Spencer, I think we should get on the phone this week. Given Jay Parikh and our whole team’s efforts to ensure that youguys are up and successful on Ning, I am continually disappointed how you read something negative andconspiratorial into everything we do. Jay has been on the phone with Mick over the course of the past few weeks to ensure that we can minimize theimpact of changes that we have – and will continue to make – to the Ning Platform on Widget Laboratory.Moreover, our goal is to ensure that your products perform at scale while staying within our terms of service, termsof service that are designed to ensure the Ning Platform is healthy and available for everyone. That’s it. We don’twant to see you fail. We just want to see you succeed in a way that scales. If we tell you that something won’t work or scale, it is not because we want to compete with you. If we need toresearch an unintended consequence of your code on the performance or registrations on a network, it is notbecause we want to see the network remove your feature. We have to investigate and address issues we see withyour products and code to the extent they impact performance or put strain on the system. That’s the reality of technology and is in no way personal. Our only goal is to have you build your products in such a way that doesn’t slow down the networks running your products or takedown the Ning Platform with what you’re doing. Both of those would result in us needing toshutdown WidgetLaboratory products and that’s has never been our first choice of options. Hopefully, you know thisafter 8 months of working with us. If you don’t trust us on this, then I sincerely recommend exploring something other than a 3

party developer business. It will be the case with any platform on which you work. It’s in both of our interests to make each other successful. Time and time again it feels like you are trying to threatenus into something that is never exactly clear. This is maddening when we’re investing time and effort from our endinto figuring how we can be successful together. I think we need to determine once and for all if you want to work with us or continue to treat us like the opposingside in a court case. If you view us as the enemy, this is not going to work. However, if there’s a way for us to worktogether where we can make each other mutually successful without all of these strange misperceptions of personaland conspiracy issues, then I think that we’ll both win. If that’s not possible, then it’s probably better for both of us to know this sooner rather than later and make the rightdecisions with respect to our mutual investments in each other’s success. Gina

Evil Genius <evilgenius@widgetlaboratory.com>

Re: WidgetLaboratory Issues

August 2, 2008 11:19:12 PM CDTgina@ning.comEvil Genius <evilgenius@widgetlaboratory.com>, Mick <mick@widgetlaboratory.com>Gina,Yes, I think we should get on the phone, that would likely help quite a bit.Your reply has nothing to do with my letter.This is not about conspiracy, this is not about you competing with us or hoping we fail, and it's not about my threatening ortaking anything personal.This is about the fact that WidgetLaboratory has more than 1700 networks and one million members who utilize our productsand RELY upon us to deliver consistent performance. When Ning does not give us the tools and support to make that happen,then both of our companies suffer. Nothing else is relevant.You should check your facts as well. Jay has never been on the phone with Mick, EVER. I'm attaching all of thecorrespondence that was sent and received in the last two days. Please note the last email from Jay where he (after younotified him this evening) apologizes to Mick for never getting back to him about our SOS request for help because he "lost theemail in his spam filter". Considering the fact that we are the only Network that provides any real products to your customerson the Ning "platform", do you really think we are being unreasonable to believe that Ning might keep us notified before youdecide to pull the plug on using Dojo in the header of every page? Is it unreasonable to think that you might think aboutnotifying us ahead of time about your plans to do so? Is it unreasonable that Ning KNEW it had broken our products but failedto get back to us with any promised solution or patch more than two days later? Can you name any other "platform" that woulddo such things to its 3rd party developers?All your other 3rd party comments are red-herrings and irrelevant. Go back and read your own voluminous quotes from Tech-Crunch, et al, where you make the bold statement that Ning should be the platform of choice for 3rd party developers. Howmany are there right now on Ning? It is WidgetLaboratory and a couple of "script" writers. That is it. Why do you think thatmight be? We think it is because you are making claims about your level of support and encouragement that don't jibe in anyway with the facts. Ning has no useable support or documentation system for 3rd party developers and we are the only onesthat have figured out how to make your "platform" work. Everyone else thinks that it is futile. Even with this hurdle, we don't everASK you for help unless it is CRITICAL to your clients because NING broke something. When we do, there is no support. It islike shouting into a well.WidgetLaboratory has something that Ning can use, and you know it. We have captured the hearts and pocketbooks of yourown best clients. We have a "schtick", a story, and products that wouldn't work if they were brought forward by Ning with yourVC overlords. We have the ability to bring attention to Ning in ways that you are unable or unwilling, and we have proven thatagain and again.Instead of messing around with all this "fluff", my suggestion is that you and I have a private conversation about how Ning andWidgetLaboratory can start working together as a team instead of this incredibly stupid tug of war that was created at your end,not ours. We're prepared to stand up to public scrutiny for every event that has taken place thus-far. We do not see how thefacts as they exist today would portray Ning in such a favorable light given how far they digress from your own publicstatements.We offer you a truce and an opportunity to get Ning to a new level rather than any more gamesmanship. You had our respectfrom day one. Now we ask you to take us seriously as well.We await the favor of your reply.Spence