Social Networking or Social Software - Which One?

Social networking is one of the key concepts that is driving Web 2.0 these days. ith the opportunities social networks offer for collaboration and communication, this is certainly something we as educators should be thinking about being involved in.

Or have you thought about joining an existing community on a social network like Facebook or MySpace?

Creating your own social network could improve your branding, increase site ?stickiness? people spending more time on your Web site), promote customer feedback, and give you the ability to gather and share business intelligence. But creating a communication platform for your community may not be so easy to setup and maintain.

To get started, search the 220,000+ social networks on Ning and join communities that match your interest - interact with members and once you get comfortable, launch your own social network (see example) in few simple steps.

Dolphin: Dolphin is open source software that is well-known throughout the web design community as one of the most powerful social network applications. With Dolphin, you can build a large online community with the most control and customization of any platform out there. Keep in mind that installation does require some advanced web host knowledge.

The network is built on Ning, a site allowing the creation of ad-hoc social networks, and programmers can create customized add-ons using the Google-backed Open Social API, meaning the add-ons are reusable on other sites.

Creating your own social network doesn't have to be complicated. Starting from scratch with your own website certainly requires some web design knowledge. ut even people who've never developed a single webpage can make use of the latest social network platforms to start their own community website.

I seriously doubt that this model will work in the long run. The idea of a social network is for people to congregate in large groups in a select few destinations. Giving every John and Jane Doe their own social network will only cannibalize themselves.

Imagine you started a social network and want me to join, frequent and participate. I start my own and want you to join, frequent and participate etc … you get the picture. Sooner or later all these little social networks will just go silence into the abyss.

You can integrate Google Analytics with your social network to know how people are discovering your Ning community and what sections are more popular among the crowd. It is nearly impossible to get this kind of data from other popular social sites like MySpace or Facebook.

In case your social network becomes popular on the Internet, you may upgrade to a premium version of Ning that allows you generate revenue by running your own ads on the network.

I'm doing some research on the question on creating a Facebook Group, or building your own network. I know there's a huge difference here, but sometimes people/companies etc think they can get on the social networking train if they have a presence on Facebook… which in their minds is a group.

You can create your own social networking site like Facebook, by using the new developed software, Niche Socializer. Here is a resources site to learn more about this new social networking software: http://nichesocializerreviewbonus.com

Niche Socializer Review

Facebook has over 150,000,000 members. That’s not a typo. We’re talking about a membership that’s half the size of the United States population. And it’s happening on a global scale.
That means a lot to Internet marketers… its a very huge market. In fact, this is the biggest marketing opportunity to come along since the web began.
But as an individual, you can’t compete with Facebook. It took them months to get their first site up, and years to get it to where it is today. You don’t have that kind of time. Why does it all feel so out of reach?
Social networking is a trend. The ones leading the trend get to surf it all the way into the beach of major profits. The laggards just get to watch the fun (and money) everybody else is having (and getting).
Well, you can try to get on board it by using existing social networking sites to market to people, but that’s likely to fail. Others are ahead of you, and the rules can change in a flash.
The smarter thing to do is to build your own community site… but can you do it?

Here is a solution…

You see, Andrew X and Steven Lee Jones faced the same challenges once. They were stuck. They saw the huge profit potential of social marketing, but didn’t see a clear path to building their own social networking sites. So they forged their own trail.
They spent months and a ton of money to create their own community site platform. It lets them build phenomenal community sites that attract members like crazy. Best of all, their software is extremely easy to use, and lets them build sites fast.

They call it Niche Socializer, and the reviews it is getting are amazing.

But what really counts is the money you can make with Niche Socializer. Andrew and Steven have built in multiple ways to monetize your site easily and quickly. For example:
You can sell your own products using the eCommerce module.
You can use the built-in ad module to rotate ads on your pages without alienating your members.
You’ll own each site you create with Niche Socializer, so you can do anything you want with each site, including selling them!
One person who tested the software used it to build a site that grew to a $500 per month revenue stream within 45 days. Then he turned around a sold the site for $6,000 after only 54 days. Andrew and Steven will even show you how to flip sites like that yourself.
The software is easy for anyone to use, but it’s also powerful enough to create profit-pulling sites with just a few mouse clicks. If you want to learn more about Niche Socializer and may try-out the software to proof that it works for you, just go to http://nichesocializerreviewbonus.com/ and you will get many FREE bonuses.