Ning social network platform

Definition

“Ning is a platform for creating your own social networks. Our passion is putting new social networks in the hands of anyone with a good idea. With Ning, your social network can be anything and for anyone.
You start by choosing a combination of features (videos, blogs, photos, forums, etc.) from an ever-growing list of options. Then customize how it looks, decide if it's public or private, and add your brand logo if you have one. People who join your network will automatically have a customizable profile page and will be able to message and friend each other.” (About Ning, retrieved 19:41, 16 December 2007 (MET)).

Ning hopes to compete with large social sites like MySpace and Facebook, by appealing to users who want to create networks around specific interests or have limited technical skills.[4] The unique feature of Ning is that anyone can create their own custom social network for a particular topic or need, catering to specific audiences. [...]

Currently, Ning has two primary business models. One allows users to create a network for free, in exchange for the network hosting ads that Ning supplies. The other, their "Ning for Business" option, offers users a network where they control the ad content (or lack thereof), in exchange for a monthly fee. A few other premium services such as extra storage and bandwidth and non-Ning URLs are also available for additional monthly fees.

(Ning (Wikipedia, retrieved 19:41, 16 December 2007 (MET)).

In education

Ning is somewhat popular in education, since it does not

One advantage of Ning is also the fact that it is quite open for programmers (it has an API, and you also can modify php code).

Links

Official Ning

• http://www.ning.com/

About Ning

• Ning (Wikipedia)

Examples

• Ning in education
• Classroom 2.0
• Mons 2007 (just for DKS's demo purposes)