New Media Initiatives

• Already popular
• Possible to hide the fact that it's a social network

Note: We are not salesmen for Ning. We just think it's cool.

What is Ning?

It is a platform on which to build your own social network. Ning is a for-profit company that does some of the hard work involved with creating a social network. Mainly, they provide profiles, open ended data systems and a high degree of customizability. Ning allows developers to build apps in php by providing a number of classes that hook into their back end systems. You build the presentation and display logic, they handle the database and user work.

What makes it powerful?

• Highly open-ended
• Highly customizable
• Well done
• Active community of developers
• Everything is under the creative commons
• They host it
• Low cost
• One profile works on many networks