Ning: Do we really need the next best online thing?

Ning. It's the new thing, apparently.

Unlike Facebook (a social networking site for people you already know) and Twitter (I follow you, you follow me), Ning hopes to empower "people to create and discover new social experiences for the most important people and interests in their lives."

"Founded in October 2004...[a]nyone can sign up to create, discover, or join new social networks on the Ning Platform. With over one million social networks on the Ning Platform, the company provides the largest number of unique social networks on the Internet today."

The cause, or interest, comes first. The friends come later.

In our offline days, book clubs started with the same concept. Everyone would rally around a book they liked, and then get together to talk about it.

Except there's something mysterious going on with all this social networking. None of it is happening in real life.

When did we get so scared of each other? And when did we get so identity-obsessed?

Ning offers social networkers, pages that are "Infinitely customizable," "Beautifully designed," and "Easily created and moderated."

Sounds a lot like a human being to me.

But online social networking is just a reflection of us, not the real thing. And perhaps not anything close to the real us. (You want to see pictures of me first-thing in the morning?)

Is it possible that all these social networking sites are doing, is allowing us to become insular to the extreme?

As we paint, and moderate, design and beautify and brand the pages of ourselves online, we're in effect performing cosmetic surgery ON the mirror. Constantly looking back at ourselves and what we want to be, to see, we've perhaps lost the ability to look beyond to the world out there.

I can't advocate for or against these sites since I use many of them daily. I have a Facebook and Twitter account. And I blog here.

And I like pretty things and like my blog page to look pretty.

But not at the expense of getting on with things and doing it. I'm here to blog, not brand.

Ning offers "Branding and visual design freedom" for their user's pages.

The American Marketing Association defines the word "brand" as "A name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."

It seems that we're more interested in identifying our differences (a word softened by our use of labels like "unique" instead) than we are in actually coming together and seeing our similarities.

Don't get me wrong. Ning has a great idea, proven by its 4.7 million visitors since January 2009. I've gone on their site and found some networks I'd like to join too.

But here's the thing, I have joined "causes" and networks on my Facebook page.

I joined them, and then promptly forgot about them.

Online flowers, no matter how well-designed or inspired, are incapable of smelling sweet.

Perhaps instead of creating a "new chapter in how people create, organize, and communicate online" we should log-off and start interacting like we used to, with all its potential dysfunction and mess.

Call someone instead of texting (my admitted vice), send them a card instead of an email, go down to the volunteer office of your favourite cause and spend a day in service, rent or buy that bike and join the cycling club.

Let's become experts at real-life communication before we start revolutionizing the world online.