Create Social Networks With Ning

Posted on March 4, 2007

There is some buzz over a new website called Ning that allows users to create social networks. The website allows you to create a social network about anything and many have already been created. There are Nings for microbrews, presidential candidates, American Idol and even ketchup. You can choose to just join the social networks if you would prefer not to make one. Some of the Ning social networks are invite only so you may not be able to join immediately.

According to the Ning team on the Ning blog many people have decided to create Ning social networks. The post says over 7,000 have already been created.

We worked through the night to make your networks on Ning faster than a speeding bullet. The issues folks saw with our database bug earlier in the week are resolved and, while something new can always show up, our servers are happy as clams under the current high load. God, I hope I didn't just jinx it by saying that :-)

In all seriousness, we've been up, stable, and fast for the past 18 hours and responding to issues within minutes. In total, we took Ning down for 3 hours over the past 4 days. We had intermittent slowdowns for an additional 6 hours. The benefit of monitoring absolutely everything is that we can tell you that we've had 97% uptime since our launch. Not too bad for the first week of a brand spanking new product.

Things look good for Ning in the early going. At a minimum they've created a popular social network hosting service. They are likely to face many new competitors later this year and on into 2008.



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