I wanted to check out Ning.com, so I decided to sign up. The signing up is simple: you type in your name, an e-mail address, a password of your choice, your date of birth, and then… type in “I’m gay”. Huh?

I have no issues, so sure, I typed it in. On a serious note, I do realize this is (probably!) just a freak random captcha string.

Anyway, Ning.com is a service that provides a bunch of tools to build a social network. Anybody can sign up and “create a social network”. You just drag and drop different tools on a basic three-column layout. The available tools include: forum, blog, photos, videos, audio (these three allow users to upload and share media), events (with a calendar), member list, groups (for special interest groups within the network), RSS (feeding in), activity (lists activity in the network), badges (for promoting the network), notes (which is more like , chat, birthdays (not exactly what I need). There’s also a “text box” where you can post custom html or widgets. (You can create several).

You can customize the look and feel, from selecting themes to editing your own CSS. Still - I’m not sure it has all the features I want. Such as: can you have members opt in for a periodic newsletter? (maybe: there is something called “broadcast messages” that gets sent to all members. Members can opt out.) Can you feed out the RSS from the blog? (yes, you can). You can also add tabs where you can add any info you want, so if you are prepared to put in some effort you could do a lot of stuff.

Oh, and I just created mediakonst.ning.com - intended to be a platform for new media art practitioners (and others) in (or outside) Sweden. Stay tuned for more about this.