FaceBook Helps You Start Your Own Social Network

Starting another social network seemed like a big task a few months ago. How do you get all those new users to sign up with yet another social network?

I think there will be thousands of new social networks and I think there should be, especially those that are more niche-oriented and who target a specific group rather than everyone and anyone.

This is from a story at the NYTimes that explains how easy FaceBook is making it for others to start their own social networking website.

Facebook Helps Social Start-Ups Gain Users

By JENNA WORTHAM

A growing number of start-up companies are outsourcing the sign-up process. They are making use of a Facebook service that lets users log into new sites using their Facebook credentials. The free service, Facebook Connect, can help nascent Web services recruit a healthy crowd of users in a hurry, and help the users find their friends on those sites.

At the same time, the service reinforces Facebook’s role as the central hub of the social networking world.

Most sites hedge their bets by also creating ways for people to sign up directly, or to use their log-in information from Twitter, in addition to Facebook, as Plancast has elected to do.

Facebook Connect has helped give rise to a new wave of social Web services that benefit from piggybacking on Facebook and its 400 million users.

Are you building your own social network yet?