I just read a thought-provoking message from the Grasshoppers group on Facebook. This message discusses the founder’s decision to switch his group from Facebook to Ning.

Hello all 900+ Grasshoppers:

Some of you are already aware that we’ve put up a Grasshoppers group on the Ning platform:

http://grasshoppers.ning.com

There are a few reasons. 1.) Facebook doesn’t have RSS feeds, so it’s harder to know when there’s an update here. With Ning, there are feeds for everything, meaning you can see the Grasshoppers data in your reader of choice.

2.) The Terms of Service (TOS) of Facebook says some scary things about what they can do with our data here:

http://www.legalandrew.com/2007/07/21/facebook-and-the-law-8-things-to-know/

3.) Evidently, Facebook etiquette is to use group messaging sparingly. I’d rather we can reach out to you, should someone need help.

So, I’m inviting you to come see what we’ve created for Grasshoppers:

http://grasshoppers.ning.com

We’ll leave this Facebook group in place for a while, but I’m really liking how Ning enables more potential actions for people to be helpful.

The platform isn’t the group. I’m just seeking the best tools for the job. If this bugs you, sorry. Feel free to leave the group if you’re frustrated by all this. The goal remains the same: to be helpful.

I hope you come check it out:

http://grasshoppers.ning.com

Oh, and I won’t be leaving Facebook. I still think the site has value, and I’m happy with the service. I just wanted to put Grasshoppers somewhere that it could work better for our goals.

Thanks,

–Chris…

This is pretty interesting in light of the recent financing announcement from Ning. Guess this just goes to show that even though Facebook is the prettiest girl at the dance, the show ain’t over.

‘Nuff said.

technorati tags: ning,facebook, groups, web2.0