eNetworking 101: The Blog: Ning!

The name says nothing about what it is, but Ning is a growing social networking service that allows you to "create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds." In Ning, you can join multiple networks on topics such as:

Some groups are open to anyone, while others are "invitation only." Group pages allow for forums, posting of videos & photos, information from member blog posts, and other stuff. The group "owner" decides what can be on the group page.

Members also have individual pages on which they can include a variety of things as well as customize the look of the page. Unfortunately, a person who is part of multiple networks in Ning must setup an individual pages for each network. That can be a pain the "back side" after a while and also make it difficult to track "what's where."

Although I first was thrilled with Ning, I quickly found it difficult to keep up with the multiple conversations. Ning does allow you to follow the forums through RSS feeds, but that has not kept me truly connected with my groups in Ning. Personally, I find that I will use Ning when I have a specific question that I feel one of the groups on Ning can answer for me. Others, though, find Ning quite useful and some groups have found very interesting ways of using Ning. For example, the two-day conference in Australia called "Beyond The Hype 2008: Web 2.0" is using a Ning group to disseminate information to people who are interested in the conference and allow for those people to interact before the event. This is a very focused group, which seems to be working well.

Is Ning for you? I don't know. I do think it is worth looking at. Do a search and take a peek at some of the groups. You might want to join an active group, setup a basic page for yourself and participate for a while. See who you can connect to and what information is being shared. You may not really know if Ning is for you unless you jump into it.