Ning is a free online service (or, as we like to call it, a Playground) for building and using social applications. Social apps are web applications that enable anyone to match, transact, and communicate with other people.

Boggle...

Why is this in the news? The company is more than a year old.

UPDATE:

After months of fine-tuning, Ning is finally ready to make its big push with a free toolkit designed to make it easy to launch a social network with a few mouse clicks. Ning's package includes all the social networking staples -- videos, photos, music, forums, personal profiles and blogs.

The site does have some desirable features:

Members can set different privacy settings for every photo, video, or blog post they contribute.

From Ning:

Ning is the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds.

You can make it public or private and for anything - and anyone - you'd like.

Wire story:

Although both MySpace and Facebook have become smash hits by offering the same features, Andreessen is convinced people dislike the big social networks' one-size-fits-all approach. With Ning's products, even technology neophytes can customize social networks around narrowly shared interests, such as a sports team, church group, hobby or TV show.

"This is the next logical step (for social networks)," said Andreessen.

Andreessen has discovered MemeStreams Circles.

Apparently Andreessen is unfamiliar with Metcalfe's Law.

From the FAQ:

For other Ning sites you might have created, like bookmarks or a discussion board, you'll need to create a new social network from scratch. We don't have an easy way to migrate them over. Sorry about that!

Thank you for being an early adopter. Now start over. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.