It's not a big secret that MySpace has become a huge spam swamp. I'm getting more advertisement comments and messages on my page than a popular blog gets Google AdSense. The underground feel that used to wrap MySpace in the past is total history now, and we're ready to leave our “parents' house" and move into a new place of our own.In a proper web 2.0 spirit, why look for someone else’s community while we can build one of our own?Ning is an online platform for creating social websites and social networks. The websites Ning offers are built with standard PHP and the platform itself is built with Java.Ning offers almost every feature you need in order to build your own website, with unique tools for community services. It’s like taking blogs and platforms such as WordPress into a new level, while making every website into a community with friends, comments, messages and so on.Among the features Ning offers you can find a full customization allowing you to add your own logo, branding and visual design. Email invitations, messages and notifications that are sent from your new social network share its look & feel. Ning also offers a variety of themes for your network and the ability to add custom CSS designs of your own.Setting up your network is easy to follow and simple to use: within 5-10 min YOU ARE MySpace! Next step is to invite your friends and that’s about it. This amazing platform was created by Marc Andreessen (of Netscape fame) and Gina Bianchini, and launched its service in October 2005. Ning already holds over 30,000 different social networks!It is much cleaner, friendly and impressive than MySpace and I can’t see why it can't become the "next big thing" everyone seems to be looking for. Ning combines videos, blogs and photos in the easiest way and provides all the tools you need in order to express yourself – as a business website, an art related website or any other topic you can imagine.One thing that is missing is a music player for bands and artists to upload songs. Although almost every band has a video in store now a days, in order to give the best alternative to MySpace I would expect Ning to provide a tool for musicians to upload not only videos but also music files.And if you were wondering about Ning’s business model, here's Gina Bianchini's explanation on how it works:

“Every free social network created on Ning gets a quota of 5GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth. This is typically more than adequate, however for an additional $9.95 per month, you can get another 5GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth.On free social networks, we reserve the right to run ads. If you want to buy that right from us and run your own ads - or have no ads at all - it’s an additional $19.95 per month.There are a few additional premium services, such as masking your domain name which is $4.95 per month, and we plan on supporting the service with a combination of targeted advertising and premium services.”

If you need tips on how to create a good online community you can find it here.Make sure to visit the 8hands Ning community at http://eighthands.ning.com/