Marc Andreessen's Social Platform: Ning

An anonymous reader writes "As reported on SiliconBeat, Marc Andreessen has finally lifted the covers off his latest project: an applications structure called Ning, which makes the development of social websites like thefacebook.com and match.com more accessible. See TheGlu and Dating for examples of Ning in action."

Comments

Re:Slashdot dating

[crschmidt]

Create an account. Apply for beta developer status. Click "Clone This" button on dating.ning.com. Type in that title, add a few extra fields ("What programming langugages do you know?" "Who is your ideal BOFH?")

It's that easy.

That's the power of cloning, and the primary force behind Ning.

Want Proof? I just did it: SlashDot Dating.

Breakthrough in Social Network

[wjzhu]

The best musicians may not build their own instruments, and the best film makers and photographers may not build their own cameras. Currently social network sites are created only by those with significant technical ability. Now with Ning, the tools are built and ready for social-artists to use: people with great social-IQ can develop some amazing social webtools that we may not yet imagined.

Everyone's missing the point

[Erisynne]

My company was contracted to work on Ning, and we've been doing it for over 3 months. It makes me a bit sad that everyone seems to be missing the point of what makes Ning truly great.

It's the data. The SHARED data. It's an ecosystem, not just a platform or a hosted framework. Ning is much greater than any individual application, and I personally don't think that the true popularity will come from the dating applications. Ning's much bigger than any given application (and by that I mean piece of software and application as in "the way it's used"), and it's not a mega app. It's an app playground.

See my blog post on the subject: http://www.slash7.com/articles/2005/10/05/fun-time s-startup-launches