Social Networking with Ning: For Jade
Social networking sites have certainly taken off recently, though I doubt the many denizens of these sites think of them in terms of social networking. Ning, co-founded by Marc Andreesen (Netscape Co-Founder) and Gina Bianchini (24 Hour Laundry, another type of social networking site), aims to truly bring the next level of social networking to not just the social masses, but the developers as well.
Not only is the site full programmable for developers, but the site allows its users to customize its look to a decent extent, with an upgrade coming in December of 2006 that should greatly increase the user's control of layout, content, and theming. Co-founder Gina Bianchini says, “What's different about Ning from other services is that we give you your own video site like YouTube, or social-networking site like MySpace. But unlike being a page in somebody else's service, it's yours. You get to choose what it's about."
After visiting their site, I definitely find it to be a blending of many social networking ideas: a blog, a video hosting service (a-la You Tube), a My Space-esque feel for content, FaceBook style posting and grouping, and even a bit of flexibility a-la Google Pages. It's certainly a neat idea, and since Ning users don't need to know any coding what-so-ever to enjoy its features and customize their Ning site as they see fit, it will definitely appeal to the masses. While I don't know if its a service I'd use, given that I know some web coding and I have my own hosting space, Ning's potential rates high in my book. I also found it a bit odd that Ning had existed for over a year, but I hadn't heard anything about it till now.
2 comments:
Brian - I caught that article on CNET as well. It's a pretty interesting concept and I wonder if it will prove to be as popular as the SNCs it could spawn (or those already out there). I kind of doubt it, though. It seems like the popularity of the 2 or 3 big SNCs is the ease with which people can create an account and receive all the benefits of membership.
Interestingly, the TA in my Journalism class has set up his own SNC called GatorGradStudent.com. To design it he used a tool called AroundMe. He seems to really like the software. I wonder how it differs from ning.
-ciao
Brian,
I haven't heard of Ning prior to your post. Thanks for the knowledge :)
It's amazing to me how much SNC's are evolving and how with each new site there are more user options.
Jade
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