Financing Ning and Commoditizing Social Networks

Hosting social networking designer Ning recently received an investment of $ 44 million, as reported by founder Mark Andressen (by the way, we already published an interview with Mark four months ago, dedicated to just this project). At the same time, according to rumors , the estimate of the entire startup was about $ 214 million. Today, 71531 social networks have been created at the Ning site, that is, investors have estimated each of them at about $ 3000.

Another important point is the identity of investors. This is the Legg Mason Foundation, which has nothing to do with the Internet and high technology. However, they feel competent enough to invest in social networks. From this there can be only one conclusion: the technology of social networks is no longer considered something high and complex. The organization of users in the community and buying / selling them in bulk is the most common deal. Social networks have turned into an ordinary commodity, which in the West is called "commodity".

Om Malik in his blog writes that this deal once again confirms his long-standing thesis on turning the functionality of social networks into a regular feature . He was not the only one who paid attention to this trend: such conversations have been going on for several years .

Innovation designer Ning is that Mark Andressen, perhaps the first to realize and saw the commoditization of social networks. He founded an infrastructure platform with which any student group, church parish, newspaper editorial board or school class can build their social network.
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via GigaOM