Ning (website)
Ning is an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks, launched in October 2005. Ning offers customers the ability to create a community website with a customized appearance and feel; feature sets such as photos, videos, forums and blogs; and support for “Like”, plus integration with Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo!. Ning, Inc. is owned by Mode Media.
Ning was co-founded by Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini. By June 2011 there were over 90,000 social websites running on the Ning Platform.
History
Ning started development in October 2004 and launched its platform publicly in October 2005.
At its launch, Ning was a free-form platform for the development and hosting of open-source "social applications." The source code for Ning applications was available to users, and the service made it easy for anyone to fork a Ning application, modify its PHP code and run it as their own. Applications included photo albums, blogging software, and many for sharing business reviews. In late September 2006, Ning narrowed its focus to offering a group website, a photos website, and a videos website for people to copy and use for any purpose. These three templates were later superseded by a single customizable application aimed at enabling anyone to easily create their own social network.