I’ve been playing around with Ning a little this morning, and am really impressed with it, not least because now users can create subgroups within a community. Add that to blogs, forums, photo and video uploading and plenty of RSS goodness, and you’ve got a pretty comprehensive community platform.

The community I created whilst testing this stuff out is called Online Innovation UK. I had the idea that it might be nice to have a place for everyone to get together, whether public or private sector; and regardless of geographical location within the UK. All you need is to be interested in the application of web technology to make life easier for folk

oiuk

I think this could be really useful, and I hope it isn’t a case of reinventing the wheel. There are probably several groups out there that cover one aspect of this area, but nothing that drags everyone together.

Ning does allow me to send out invites to people to join, but that makes me feel nervous - too close to spam for my liking. So I thought I would try to promote it in a more circumspect way: through my blog, twitter, facebook etc. If nobody joins, then I guess I haven’t lost anything, as amazingly, Ning is free.

If you’d like to connect with other people who are engaged in making use of Web 2.0, Social Media and other web technologies, please visit OIUK and join in.