Ning as a Hub for Your Social Group, Part 1: Privacy

Ning has taken the world by storm, and has not yet begun the final super-growth we are accustomed to seeing on the net. I certainly believe we will, and that when it happens it will parallel Myspace, Facebook and similar sites. Currently
it has 2 million networks, and 40 million users, on the system and they are
adding 12 million new members are month. So what is just a smaller social
system today will likely in the next two years be a big deal. So everyone
involved today is like being on the ground floor of a site that everyone will
soon be using and it is important to stake yourself now to benefit from it in
the future.

Privacy is the first issue you will deal with. Ning allows you to be as private
as you want to as public as you want. This is a highly useful feature, and
offers ways to manage your social presence as a hub. The most private setting
is invite only. The most public setting is everything open to everyone,
regardless of their membership status. How much information do you want to
share is important to understanding these privacy settings.

By Invite Only is the most private status, as this means you cannot be accessed
unless you invite an individual to join. Even within that, you can even make it
only administrators can be invite people. This is an excellent setting for
groups that want to deal with themselves, and want privacy. It is also useful
if you charge membership fees, either one-time or subscriptions. This will make
it possible to have a level of security as about as high as you can get on the
net. Remember nothing is ever 100% private on the net, ever. You can also allow
members to invite people as well. This is great for families, companies for
internal communication, secret societies.

By Request is only a tiny step down. This allows people to apply for
membership, but still cannot see the site. It allows you to screen people, and
add only those you want, and still maintain privacy.

Setting your privacy to Main page only, allows you to show just your front
page. This still allows you to keep a lot private and still explain your site.
At this point you can allow either open membership or still require approval of
membership. This still grants a lot of privacy but allows some visibility.

To become a fully public site, allows more to be visible. This means that
non-members of the site can see a lot of different parts as you choose. This is
great for information sites for businesses, charities, and media sites. You can
still allow people to join freely or creat invites.

So this deals with the Main Page, and yet you still have layers of privacy as
you choose. Every time you put a Tab up, you can make it administrator only,
member only, or open to the public. This way you can make some information
public, and other parts private to your members, and even your administrators
only. This is one of the best ways to get people to sign up, by having some
private members.

This choice of privacy even goes down to how your form groups. You can make
groups, public and visible to the public or private to your members. This is a
great option, and it allows privacy even in the most visible sites.

One question of privacy is the member’s feature. This is one of the toughest
choices, as you want to show you have a lot of members and interact with them.
Yet some people can be sensitive to having their names able to be seen by
anyone in the network. This level of public awareness will depend on how much
privacy you feel as a creator is needed and will vary from network to network.

So as you develop your Ning Site, the issue and a policy of how much privacy
you want is important. You can always begin very private, and except for Groups
(which force you to choose when forming) you can always change your privacy
levels at anytime, making them less private as you feel comfortable or more
private as needed.

Consider privacy well, and remember that in the Internet world, nothing is 100%
guaranteed private, and you should always consider that when you post anything.
Having said that, Ning’s options are among the best way among Social Media for
controlling your information and access to it.

Happy Building and Peace.

If you are looking for advice on building your Social Media, just contact Ed
at Edthepagan@aol.com.