Josey from Visualrepublic recently introduced me to Ning. It is the first time I’ve heard about this service to I decided to check it out.
Apparently it started in 2005 already but it evolved quite a bit over the past couple of years into what it is today - an all-in-one solution to build your own social network a-la Facebook or MySpace style. Quite cool.
When you go to the site you are met with a rather forbidding Google-like interface - quite minimalistic with just a big ‘Discover Social Networks’ box in the middle of the screen. It is only by scouting around and clicking on the rather unobtrusive links at the bottom of the page that you can get more information about what it is and how it works. Even that information is rather coy, since at some point you discover that there is a free version and a premium version and that they are allowed to serve their own ads on the free version. In the premium version you can remove their ads and run your own and even ‘white label’ the social network by pointing your own domain at your social network site on Ning.
This is an ideal type of setup of any type of organisation that wants to foster communication and collaboration between its members.
It is not without its controversy though since like all social networking sites (including Facebook) it needs to deal with issues of content and member ownership and privacy and some of its latest decisions regarding this was not met with equal equanimity by all members….
Overall though, it is a brilliant solution if you are feeling megalomaniac and want to take over the world with your own social networking group!
Tags: facebook, member ownership, networking group, ning, social networking sites, social networks