Yes, it took me only 60 minutes to use Ning’s wizard-based platform to create a basic social network. Here’s the time line:

• Draft a quick marketing plan (15 minutes)
• Do some basic keyword research (10 minutes)
• Create my Ning account (1 minute)
• Create the Shoot First using the 4 step wizard (10 minutes)
• Grab some images, videos and content to add to the site (15 minutes)
• Update the site (5 minutes)
• Update my personal profile (3 minutes)
• Behold my own social network (1 minute)

I found Ning incredibly easy to setup, comparable to WordPress or Blogspot for blogging. Less than 20 minutes of the setup time was actually using the Ning interface to modify my site. It contains all of the fundamental social networking features – user profiles, groups, invitations, discussion boards, and blogging. Plus, they offer services that allow direct integration in with Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. However, the services offered are not quite as polished as a Facebook or MySpace. For example, the invitation process does not allow folks to import names from existing contact lists like Yahoo, AIM, Hotmail or gmail.

From the standpoint of managing a social network, I have control over the site with moderation tools and adult content filtering. More importantly, I also have a lot of power to customize. Ning makes it easy to do a complete overhaul of the template UIs using CSS. Additionally, I can plug in my own external widgets and tap into their developer community for custom services that others have built.

For anyone who wants to monetize their social network, they have to pay the $19.95 per month fee from their a la carte menu of premium services. Ouch. Worse yet, you have to pay for that service if you want to remove their Google AdSense ads. I can understand that Ning needs its own revenue, but this is too much. Nobody serious can make the math work by posting Google AdSense ad blocks like Ning suggests. Or if your social network becomes big enough to use an ad network or sell your own ad space, then you probably have the resources and technical ability to build the site yourself.

Unfortunately, the other premium services that are available through Ning for Businesses also offer little value for the price. For example, the ability to use your own domain name is a nice option for anyone who wants to build their own brand and does not want Ning as part of the domain name. However, paying $4.95/month for simple domain control (and the site is still hosted by Ning) is way too expensive.

Overall, I give Ning an B grade from my first impressions. The platform shows a lot of potential and I will keep building out Shoot First to see how the community develops. If you are big into Facebook and have dreams of creating your own social network, then I definitely recommend giving Ning a shot. If you want to build your own community for the purpose of making money online through affiliate marketing or placing your own ads, then you may want to wait and see how the business services and advertising flexibility evolve.

Related posts:

1. Yet Another Social Media Profile… But It’s Google
2. Bob Angus in Social Media
3. Web Services Review – eBay’s New Shopping APIs

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2007. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: reviews, social networks, video games, web 2.0

The problem is that the demo files are usually around 1GB in size. The Bioshock demo weighed in at 1.93GB (well worth it though). Plus, the official servers can be brutally slow. Try telling your kid that they can’t play on Club Penguin because Daddy is downloading the Hitman: Blood Money demo.

The solution for the download crazy gamer has been to slog it out for the better part of a day on official distribution sites. Or one can go to classic forum-based communities, where you have to weed through tons of listings and have to pray that you don’t spend 2 hours downloading a broken file… or worse.

Until now that is. FileRadar has melded the social voting model of Digg with the power of an open community for file distribution. I found FileRadar a few weeks ago thanks to a Techcrunch post and I’ve been hooked ever since. The result for me is less time downloading, less time searching, and the fun of giving my opinion to help the community. Plus, I love to see voting systems and social bookmarking concepts applied to a niche.

Here’s how it works. You, fellow gamers and other distribution sites submit links to the demo, mod or patch for a particular video game. Then that adoring, yet equally flame-ready community of video game fanatics votes up the game file content with a “blip”. Then for each link submission, the community votes on your individual download quality and can make comments.

To find the recently released free, full version of Far Cry from a quality source, all I had to do was check the “blips” and quality ratings and then start downloading. FileRadar also helps you find what you want through an array of great sorting options, classic search functions, and a series of leaderboards.

If you are interested in social voting and bookmarking and how to apply it to a niche, I definitely recommend seeing what FileRadar has done. If you want a World of Warcraft mod while you are there, then you are in the right spot.

Related posts:

1. Prime Angus Filets: Links this Week 2-1-2008
2. I Built My Own Social Network in 1 Hour
3. MySpace Opens the Door to Developers

© Bob Angus for bobangus.com, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: social bookmarking, social networks, video games, web 2.0