If you're looking into setting up your own social network for your niche, and haven't found a solution yet, I may have one for you.

It's called Ning. It's free and it's looking pretty damn good.

You can get a network up and running in minutes, and all for free.

I must admit, I've actually known about Ning for a while, but while it was still in beta I wasn't keen on sharing it with you. It was a little clunky a while ago, but now everything looks to be smooth sailing.

It's fully customizable, and let's you add your own logos and visual flavor. You can choose the features you want for your network by having all the bells and whistles or strip it down to the bare basics. Members can invite new members, and even have their own pages within the network. It's all pretty cool.

Check it out here.. http://www.ning.com

Cheers,
Nez

Killer, will have to check this out.

I had a very "wide scope" project in mind, but I'm just
not sure if it would work. I didn't want to invest any
time or money into it, so this might be the ticket

Ning.com is indeed fantastic, I can confirm that.

And in case anybody was wondering whether it's wise to sign up with this site instead of building your own, just in case they fold or something...

Well, they just landed another $44 million in VC money, bringing it up to about $170 or so in the bank. Also backed by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen.

I doubt they're going anywhere, they'll likely get bought by Yahoo or s.t. before long.

The jury's still out on how Ning.com communities will be treated by search engines, but just for whipping up a social network around any topic, Ning has to be the best choice today.

Great feedback - thanks for that