I’m in the midst of a career transition and on the verge of a two-week family trip abroad with toddler in tow, so time for blogging is a little tight this week. It’s a good time, in other words, for pointing to valuable posts elsewhere. A recent Talkibie post on the social networking platform Ning fits the bill.
Ning, for those who are not familiar with it, is a free, Web-based platform that enables you to easily create a social network for any reason that strikes your fancy. In exchange for the “free” part of the model you have to put up with promotional links, and Ning reserves the right to display ads, but both of these can be eliminated at relatively low cost (scroll down the Product Overview page to Premium Services). The platform has the sorts of social networking features you’ve come to expect from sites like Facebook and MySpace, and these can be tweaked and customized to a pretty high degree.
In general, if you like the sound of sites like Facebook and MySpace as places for building customer or member communities, but want greater control over branding, features, and access, Ning is an excellent low-cost, easy option to consider. Check out the Talkibie post for more information and links to some example sites.
Jeff Cobb
Hedgehog & Fox