<p>Until now, if you wanted to create a social network for your self, the answer was almost certainly <a href="http://ning.com">Ning</a>. Today there are over 115,000 networks there and it&#8217;s growing.</p>

<p>When it was launched, October 4th 2005, it was a revolutionary idea that <a href="http://blog.webreakstuff.com">Fred</a> best-described in <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/10/04/ning-launches/">TechCrunch</a>:</p>

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It means anyone can now get their ideas out there and build a project (some people would call it a mash-up) in a few clicks, with no developer experience. And if you are a developer, you can pop under the hood and change it to your liking, no questions asked.
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<p>In the recent past, every time a web2.0 service is launched, some opensource alternative is also released. Well, yesterday I found an <a href="http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/open-source/build-a-social-network">interesting article</a> in the <a href="http://www.netmag.co.uk/">.net magazine</a> where it lets you host your own social network. It&#8217;s easy to do, you&#8217;ll just need a <span class="caps">PHP</span>+MySQL server but that&#8217;s what it gives you the power over Ning. You can change it around the way you like and add or remove more features, and so on.</p>

<p>I don&#8217;t believe this is a Ning-killer since the average Joe doesn&#8217;t have a hosting account, nor time to set it up and hack around. He&#8217;ll just go over to Ning, create a social network and play around with the theme editor. And users of multiple networks will share their Ning ID!</p>