Last last week, the one millionth site was created on the social network Ning. For individuals and organizations (including nonprofits) for whom Facebook is not giving them exactly what they need, there’s Ning, which allows users to build their own social network.
Ning sites are created around a specific topic (nonprofits, cats, ninjas) and allows users to control the visual design and what features are available. Although a far cry from Facebook and it’s 200 million users (that’s more than the population of Japan or Brazil), Ning has 22 million registered users, about 6.1 million of whom are considered active. And out of the million Ning networks, a fifth or so are active.
For an example of how nonprofits are using Ning, take a look at the site of our friends at National CAPACD, the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.
Ning is free, with ads. The premium version gets rid of that.
To read more from The Opportunity Agenda, visit our blog.
CPSIA-Central is a good example of Ning networking to work toward making the Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act more reasonable. As it stands, One Of A Kind (OOAK) crafters are being driven out of business by the law requiring testing products made from fabric & yarn for (non-existent) lead. Testing is expensive and these materials don’t have lead in them in the first place, but it’s a case of guilty until proven innocent.