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This the story about how I came to build the Danogo.com’s community website on ning.com

I was thinking about adding a discussion forum to danogo and stumbled on this incredible article that lists online social networking sites that you can build yourself. The post includes an analysis of 9 sites that provide free software for building a social network.

The great thing that is that these social networks also include forums, blogs, groups and the ability to post your own pictures, videos and songs. Sites like me.com, ning.com and kickapps.com allow you to create an entire community for your website. You can even make money through the advertising on your network! Me.com gives you 50% of the advertising revenue and for $19.95 a month ning.com gives you the right to place your own ads.

This comparison chart showed me very quickly that Ning and KickApps are the clear first choice. I went with Ning because of the simpler advertising plan. Also, it’s time tested solution with astounding professional features.

At first I experimented with hosting my own social network using Joomla and Phpizabi but I quickly realized that configuration, administration and design customization is a full time job. These frameworks require way more html, code and layout time and skills than Wordpress, myspace or blogger. I want to spend my time writing for the blogzine and promoting the site, not messing with code, so I went with the hosted solution. If you’re interested in open source social networks you can host yourself, there is a very excellent blog post with a huge list here.

If you’re considering building an online community for your business, band or personal amateur blog then try registering for Danogo to check out the amazing social networking tools powered by Ning! This is one of the cool widgets they provide, just click to sign up:

What has your experience been with social network sites? Leave a reply here or at the Danogo forum.