This morning I looked at ning, facebook and myspace. Myspace seems to just be a place to form an identity and connect with others. Definitely sandbox or social gathering.
Facebook seemed to have more features. I really liked the butterscotch videos on using facebook and that a person can control who has access to particular information about them. I also liked the fact that in using the privacy features one can give more information and access to certain people-like family members while being more "invisible" to others. I'm not sure if having an account on a social network is something I'm planning on keeping up with after this challenge, but I am thinking about setting up an account on facebook.
Ning is really nice if one wants to set up a social network for people of similar interests. I skimmed through much of the "about" information and was pleased to see that ning had a policy that doesn't allow for adult content-and they defined what they ment by that. there's a sense of security in knowing what you're not going to come upon. Also Ning has a policy of no one under 13 using it, but it says in it's terms that no one is to post anything that would harm a child. If I were planning on setting up a social network page that I planned to keep and use it would probably be on Ning.
Tomorrow I will decide for sure and set up the account and try to finish this assignment.