In spite of the availability of numerous social networks and some of them like Facebook and My Space being insanely popular, you may sometimes feel a need to have a network of your own where you decide what features it should have and you create the community rules. And thats when tools like Ning, Snappville and CollectiveX come into the picture.
Although there are about ten to fifteen such sites which offer you the facility to build your own social network, most of them aim at web developers and primarily offer the software platform to create the social network on it. Therefore we decided to pick the following three websites because creating a social network on them is extremely simple and can be done in minutes.
1: Ning
Ning is undoubtedly the most popular and has the largest number of social networks hosted with them. It is free to use and ad supported. You may run your own ads for a monthly fee.
It also allows you to add huge number of other features to your social network such as ready-to-use web templates, videos, RSS feeds, photo galleries, discussion forums and much more.
The primary advantage of Ning is its user-friendliness and the ease with which you can create and customize your social network.
2: Snappville
Previously known as me.com, Snappville is fairly new and based on a software platform called SNAPP which allows you to create social networks easily. Like Ning, Snappville also has nice features which include Instant Messaging, Chat Rooms, Groups,Calendar, Event Invitations and many more customization options.
Snappville is Adsense supported and also claims to share 50% of ad revenues with users. Although it may not be as user friendly as Ning, it is still worth giving it a try.
2: CollectiveX
CollectiveX focuses on creation of “ groupsites ” (they say it as one word ), where members can share pictures, videos, feeds and also create discussion forums and participate in them. It also allows you to add unlimited number of members to your groupsite and embed videos from other sites like YouTube and Metacafe.
So do you feel the need to create your own social network? Have you tried any of these sites? Would you recommend them or would you recommend another site?
By - Abhijeet Mukherjee is addicted to the internet and loves blogging and freelance writing. He blogs about tech tweaks, blogging tips and productivity hacks at Jeet Blog
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Filed Under: Cool Websites
Tags: social media, social networks
I think kickapps deserves a honorable mention as well in this list.
I want to chime in on what I read as a fantastic post. It’s important that professionals understand that another layer of “social networking” exists and that they do have a number of options.
I agree, while the usual suspects provide a solution, Collective X and their groupsite approach has been extremely rewarding for my brand. Understand I said brand not business. I am focused on connecting disjointed individuals in a pseudo sterile environment, not an easy task.
Collective X enabled me to do so in a non threatening way, one that has been embraced by professionals far and wide. I’m not sure I could have done that on the typical social networking platform with the same amount of trust. Monday Mover members have an increased amount of trust (for the group) - causing them to share connections they may not have shared otherwise.
I sat on Collective X for one year - because I DIDN’T know how to use it. Once I figured it out - I invited some folks and the rest is real time history!
I think http://www.mixxt.com deserves an honorable mention here as well
This is a good atricle.I will give it a try
Another platform worth mentioning is called The Village. We used them for our site (riptube.com) and we found their platform to be way more customizable than those mentioned. They have figured out how to make it easy to create a social network with no coding or design skills necessary.
As far as I can see the last service does not work anymore. Never mind I found a better one than you showed us above for example check into it: http://love.wackwall.com this web site was created on the Wack engine.