Ning is the model Facebook should follow.. Seriously?
They have screwed their network creators over time and time again.
They have screwed their network creators over time and time again.
They exploit their users all they can.
The model I envision is very similar to the shared hosting model employed on the web. You sign up for hosting and you install a CMS like drupal or wordpress and you have yourself a community and you pay a subcription fee. But instead of drupal there could be a social networking application. Each network creator would be responsble for it's promotion and marketing but I think it's a viable model because there are existing real world communities that would like to establish an online presence and something like this may be a great way to do that.