From Ning's blog, they stated to those who had built adult social platforms with them have up until January 5th to gather their stuff (stuff being their videos and galleries) as they will be discontinuing their 'red district' areas and closing all adult sections. Well Ning is having issues with their code and the adult sites are being closed before the alloted time.

On ChubSpot's main page, they state that "your friends list is not appearing on your profile page. When you click on the 'Friends' link on the upper right side of any page, you will be informed that 'You don't have any friends on this network yet'. Actually you have all your friends. When you go to your friends page, you can send them messages. This problem will be solved when we release our new social network. Our new social network will be released before January 1st '09".

On BearZone, on their main page: "YIKES! They pulled the plug early! Grrrrr. Don't worry, YOUR new and IMPROVED BearZone will be up on or before January 1st. In the meantime, we still retain control of our licensed galleries and can provide access while we are waiting to here back from Ning on why they wiped out BearZone 10 days before the deadline".

And then there are some who've already moved over. Got Fur? has already opened up 2 communities - Bears in the Woods with Grou.ps and the new Got Fur? on The Complete Bear.

Back on December 4th (article), PlanetBears mentioned that the social platform Ning are going to be discontinuing their 'red light district' (blog). This means that sites like Got Fur, ChubSpot (closed) and BearZone ~ all profiles which have adult content on them, has to be removed. Yet not only photos and videos... anything with adult content. From Ning: "Text and words are also considered adult content, so if there are any erotic stories or sexually explicit descriptions in groups, events, forums, profiles, etc. this is also considered adult". From what I'm reading on these Ning platforms, they are either going to continue their groups however without the adult content, or they are going to be moving all of their content over to another platform. They have until the new year to do this.

Over a month ago I posted an article about the Ning network sites. I mentioned that there were a lot of Bears and Chubs and Leather Ning pages that were popping up and it was getting a bit difficult to manage them all. Well it looks like I won't have to worry about that anymore since Ning is pulling the plug on all things adult.

From Ning's blog, they mention that they are going to discontinue the 'red light district'. Their reasons are that advertisers do not approve of pornography so they are losing money from that, and that there seems to be also lot of illegal stuff going on as well (most likely pictures of very very young people... enough said).

From all the 'Bear/Chub' Ning sites I've visited, they are telling everyone to start removing all their adult content because on January 1st, Ning is passing a very big digital broom over everything.

So just what is Ning...? Well it's like a startup kit for those who want to make a 'network website'... example... you digs Bears in Leather so you create the network and then you wait for guys to create their profiles, hoping they add a ton of photos and videos. All you do from then on is to watch it grow. What's great is that you don't have to know anything about programming since Ning offers you all the tools for this site. You don't have to worry about coding, hosting, Flash for videos... nothing at all.... Ning offers it all. But now, if you have an adult site, well say bye-bye to all those hot vids and pics.

It'll be interesting to see where those who run their Ning networks are going to go. And I'm sure quite a few guys who run their Ning sites are more than pissed. It's no work to create the site but I'm sure it's a ton of work managing them... and now after possibly 3 years of running their network (Ning started in Oct '05)... well that's 3 years of... you get the idea.

The nominees are in for the 'Best of the Bears'. This is the 3rd year that 'Got Fur...?' (website - articles) has been handing out these awards, and it's all done thru participation. You guys voted for the nominees, now you must vote who should win.

You can find the list of nominees on The Complete Bear's (website - profile) blog page Bear Bones (direct link is here). What you have to do now is choose your favourite among those listed and email your answers to them. And I got some great news - PlanetBears has been nominated, not once but twice (we've never been nominated before): once for 'Best Bear Blog' and the other for 'Best Bear Resources'. You have until December 31st to choose your winners, so get voting.

This is a friendly reminder that you have up until November 15th to vote for the 'Best of the Bears' over at the Got Fur? site. Send your nomination to this email. After that, the voting will ensue between November 15th until December 31st. There is also a new category 'Bear of the Year'; one who has done the most for the Bear and GLBT community - (this category requires a bit of background).

Here are the other categories: 'Best Bear Website', Best Bear Blog', 'Best Bear Nonfiction Book', 'Best Bear Fiction Book', 'Best Bear Podcast', 'Best Bear Porn Site', Best Bear Video', 'Best Bear Porn Star', 'Best Bear Business', 'Best Bear Celebrity', 'Best Bear Publication', 'Best Bear Club', 'Best Bear Run', 'Best Bear Movie Group', 'Best Bear Bar', 'Best Bear Fundraiser', 'Best Bear Campsite', 'Best Bear Accommodations', 'Best Bear Play Party', 'Best Bear Resource', 'Best Bear Artist', and, 'Best Bear Performer'.

On the main page of UrsusMag.com, it reads "It's Over", meaning they are no longer running their site... however... they point us over to UrsusWeb.com, and once we go there, it brings us to 'another' Ning site.

What UrsusMag (articles) used to be (before it expired) was a profile site for Bears: create a profile - add photos - add a description, etc. We all know what a profile site is - the biggest for Bears being BearWWW and Bear411 and BearWWW... and the next-generation TubeBear right behind them. But they decided to no longer work on their own design and went over to Ning.

You don't know what Ning is...? Well from Wiki (here) "Ning is an online platform for users to create their own social websites and social networks". So what does that mean...? Well say you like buttons and you want to have a website which will connect people who digs buttons... rather than making your own site, you use the 'Ning' platform and everything is preset for you... all you have to do is wait for the people to sign up; essentially, Ning gives you the tools to make a profile page.

That's fine and dandy, however there are more and more people who are making Ning sites, it's almost becoming out of hand. There are at least a dozen Bear Ning sites, one for Chubs that I know of and several for Leather. And each time you want to join that Ning site, you have to make a new profile (altho you can use the same user/pw).

Again, from Wiki, Ning "Ning hopes to compete with large social sites like MySpace and Facebook, by appealing to users who want to create networks around specific interests or have limited technical skills"... In my opinion, Ning is a good idea, however once there are 100 Bear Ning sites and you have to create a profile for each one and add pics to all of them and remember which buddy belongs to what group, then these Ning sites become a chore.

The other day (article) PlanetBears informed you that Got Fur? is once again running their 'Best of the Bears' ballot - in which you guys first nominate then later vote for who you think are Best of the Bears. Well this year they added a new category "Bear of the Year": "This is the Bear or Cub who gives time and again to the Bear and GLBT communities, proudly presents the Bear lifestyle, and embodies the spirit of the ursine brotherhood". Check out their blog for more info.

From Got Fur?: "We've been oh so busy. We've been building leather links and the leather calendar over at The Twisted Bear. We have been making nice to all of our Bear friends to get them to donate items for the Silent Auction at Lazy Bear. And, we are packing up to head to the rodeo to wrangle some cowboys - Sierra Stampede Rodeo.

We will be making our debut on LOGO during movie night at Lazy Bear... well sort of. We are featured in the documentary 'Bear Run' which debuts on LOGO on August 2nd. This feature is produced and directed by Dan Hunt - who previously produced the 'In The Life' (PBS) story on the Bear community.

And for the record - you are a very naughty dirty Bear! In the last issue of Chewin' the Fat we gave away copies of 'Prime Cut IV' (website - article) and you told us you want more free naked Bears. Check out this week’s give away on Chewin’ the Fat for more naked Bears.  Did I mention naked Bears?  LOL".