Alltop.com

I agree. Ning is a great way to get started with an easy to use interface and allows you to customize with many different plugins.

Hi Catherine - I think this short piece was focused on brands using niche sites to reach potential customers not creating social networks themselves. But, I could be wrong.

I like both Ning and Etsy - but I think places like Etsy are a better fit for brands to reach niche and here's why.

Ning is a white label solution for anyone that wants to create a social network.... keyword here is "anyone." While there are a few great communities on there that are run by awesome folks - twittermoms comes to mind, but the majority do not have the reach or the marketing insight to push your branded message through their community and make a dent in helping you gain more market share.

Etsy on the other hand is a solid community of passionate people. It's also run by passionate people who are working together to grow their community and add value to their members. Places like Etsy are there to work with brands and tighten up the viral loop so your branded message has meaning and focus.

So before everyone starts to say "go niche" to hit your target audience... think about it and make sure your media buy is not only reaching the right people, but the message is being heard.

Babette Pepaj
Founder, http://BakeSpace.com
Come for the food. Stay for the Conversation.

Ning.com is a great tool to reach and interact in some very specialized markets. I'm not to sure on the new changes though. The network search option seems to be gone.

ning is good and easy to run and maintain but it is not cared for. While working in ning you may land on really adult pages and meaningless lots of others, something that does not spell professionalism and definitely not the best company for business