Make Your Own Social Network

[Thomas Austin Gorder]

The Black Hills Music Network is powered by Ning, but there are other companies that let people build their own MySpace.

clipped from www.techcrunch.com

The news may overflow with stories about the social networking giants, such as Facebook and MySpace, but a horde of companies are doing their best to reduce the fundamental features of these websites to mere commodities. These up-and-coming companies provide so-called “white label” social networking platforms that enable their customers to build their own social networks (often from scratch) and to tailor those networks to a range of purposes.

[Thomas Austin Gorder]

There are already a couple of social networks I've found that have begun in the Black Hills. One is Black Hills Social Network which actually predates The Black Hills Music Network. I saw it when I found Ning, and I thought that it was only a matter of time before others would start popping up. (If it appears that I lifted the name for this network from Joe Saytch, creator of Black Hills Social Network, I understand. I thought long and hard about the name and my thinking was that "network" had an old media ring to it and would sound like a big deal.) Until November 15th, Joe and I were the only members of Black Hills Social Network. Today, I found that Black Hills Today has joined and added a video commercial for blackhillstoday.com. On their site, there is a link to blackhills1.com, The Black Hills #1 Social Network. Suddenly, I feel very dirty. How does The Black Hills Music Network compare with these other sites?