Ning, the Marc Andreesen-backed social network creation service, has reached 100,000 networks. Ning, which powers our own AdGabber social network, makes it easy and free for anyone to create their own social network without having to possess any technical skills. Writing on his blog, Andreesen describes Ning as a horizontal network of social networks which purposefully does not focus on or serve any particular vertical.
Andreesen describes the atmospheric growth of Ning as double viral, writing, “On Ning, users both join existing user-created networks — one of the 100,000+ networks that already exist — and/or create their own networks. This is a double viral loop. Loop one is users being invited to join a network created on Ning. Loop two is some percentage of those users creating their own new networks and then inviting other people to join those new networks.”
With marketers finally catching on (or at least joining) social networks like Facebook after having heavy-handedly botching most earlier MySpace efforts, Ning (and I speak from personal experience) makes it so insanely (as Jobs would day) easy to launch and maintain a social network, there’s no reason any company in any category shouldn’t be launching one of their own. A blog? That’s so 2005. Social networks are the new blog.
