Has anyone tried Ning yet?

I started using it around Monday/Tuesday night. It’s a “social network hosting service” (SNHS), where one can create his or her own little MySpace for free. It’s not that flexible in its social network management tools (feels alot like creating your first Geocities or Tripod website), but I haven’t heard of any competitors to Ning yet, which may be why Ning doesn’t feel all that professional.

However, while it is a bit late in the social networking boom to make a prediction, I think that Ning, as probably the first SNHS, could start a trend will redefine how we’ve long conceived of social networks as only being stand-alone services that can only appeal to the most financially-lucrative demographic.

Also, since the most generalized social networks tend to provide the ability to create interest-specfifc e-groups for free from within the network, what does this mean for the e-group if the social networks can now be created for free and for specfifc interests within the SNHS? Does this mean that the e-group become irrelevant, or does this mean that e-groups are now free to explore more specfic, more exclusive interests than those which would be allowed in a general SN like MySpace or Facebook?

Finally, what if Ning could be replicated in the 3d virtual world business? What if virtual world social networks can be created for free from within a virtual world network hosting service (VWNHS)? Virtual worlds like Second Life and IMVU already possess a few (but not most) of the trappings of a social network like MySpace and Facebook, namely, in-world e-groups, chat and messages.

Unfortunately, such may not occur for as long as development of virtual world social networks and models (a la Second Life or Kaneva) remains as prohibitevly expensive as it is right now. Lack of adoption of cross-platform standardization also results in unnecessary reinvention of wheels in this regard.

Otherwise, this one furry-oriented virtual world that was started in 2004 may have enjoyed some of the benefits and usage that has gone to the larger virtual worlds rather than shut down due to lack of attention and input.