Networking the West with Liz Ryan

Start Your Own Social Network

By Liz Ryan, 7-16-07

Ning just completed a round of funding, good news for people who like social networking but don’t like social networking sites like Facebook, Xing and LinkedIn. Ning lets you create your own private (or public) social network and invite the people you want to invite. You can customize your community in a bunch of different ways, from the graphics and colors to the topics under discussion. You can keep your network small or let it get huge. It’s your choice. Ning is free to use, funded by the ads that flank the images and text. It’s easy to use. Will Ning group members stick around to use its features? Will a personal Ning network become just another diversion of the day?

Like other content-oriented social networks (Gather being one example) the stickiness of a personal Ning community is bound to be tied up with the quality of the content generated there. So how do you get your friends to write intelligent stuff? Moderation/facilitation is the key. A Ning user/owner who wants to create a robust community will need to invest in cultivating the group and sparking worthwhile conversation. Otherwise, a Ning site can become as random as Yahoo!Answers, or worse.

If you’ve launched a Ning community that you want us to see, leave a Comment below pointing to it.

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