hese up-and-coming companies provide so-called “white label” social networking platforms that enable their customers to build their own social networks (often from scratch) and to tailor those networks to a range of purposes.
The idea of white labeling a network is to make the platform provider as invisible as possible to the social network’s users and to brand the network with the builder’s identity or intent.
The first provides hosted, do-it-yourself solutions with which customers can largely point and click their way to a brand new social network.
There are roughly three types of companies that have emerged in the space of white label social networking.
We have taken a sample of nine of these companies – Ning, KickApps, CrowdVine, GoingOn, CollectiveX, Me.com, PeopleAggregator, Haystack, and ONEsite – all of which provide free baseline services, and reviewed them individually below.
The second type of company provides social networking software for download and installation onto one’s server.
The third type works very closely with clients to build a social network based on their needs.