Blog 9

Today, I read an article in "Business Week" that talked about social networking and the increasing importance of it for businesses. The article mentioned sites such as "Myspace.com" and "Youtube.com". The article goes on to even talk about Second Life. it says that IBM has built a replica of a research center that is owned by IBM in Second Life. Even Coldwell Banker has opened a virtual office to sale virtual real estate. However, a new way for businesses to to be apart of the social networking craze is called "Ning." It is free to start and like any networking program, it is free. I does require a little skill to start, because it is like a Webpage. After it is up and running loading videos and photos should be easy. There is a downside to this program. It is free, however there are google ads that come up all along the right side of the screen and for business owners this could be problematic. They don't want to advertise their competitors unknowingly. So it costs $19.95 a month to replace or remove the google ads. Another $4.95 a month allows you to change the address by removing the .ning.com to whatever the company wants...dot com. Another $7.95 a month is paid if the business wants to remove a link that allows others in their network to create a network of their own...at least from your site. This could potientially avoid such networks coming up that talk down against your company or allowing a competitor to make a network.