I echo what you have said about the importance of owning your own data, and good news about a hosted Elgg and Drupal on the way. But I've been pondering that Ning article off an on since Alec posted it. Recently that article came up from another forum I am involved in, so I did some more digging and can't seem to find any reputable source of information to back up the claims that Ning is a scam or a pyramid scheme. Those are some serious accusations in that article. I can't even seem to find the name of the author of the article on the Charting Stocks website. Have you come across any more information?