Scott Howard launches Fort Wayne Forum

Yesterday, in a post about The Board on journalgazette.net, I challenged someone to start a true Fort Wayne social network on Ning.com. Well, less than 12 hours later, blogger and frequent SBB visitor Scott Howard had the Fort Wayne Forum up and running. And it looks great--you can upload photos and videos, and you can even host an RSS feed page on your page.

This is Scott's baby, so I'll leave it to him to discuss his vision for the FWF. I'll expand upon something I mentioned yesterday, however: I think micro networks are the next stage of social networking, and there are a lot of good reasons to connect with people who you already have something in common with (a common hometown, for example). Why would you want to be on another network if you're already connected to LinkedIn or Facebook, for example? Social networks are moving from an "or" to an "and" phenomenon--instead of being on Facebook or MySpace, you can be on multiple networks that reflect your interests. The great thing about Ning.com is that allows you to manage everything from the same hub. I'm currently connected to Smaller Indiana and Fort Wayne Born to Run on Ning, and now I can pop over to the Fort Wayne Forum in just one click.

As the image above suggests, I made good on my promise to join the new network right after it was launched. Now it's your turn: just visit the Fort Wayne Forum, set up a quick profile, and you're in. You might be the last of three people to join. But maybe not. As Scott suggested in his comment yesterday, "Let's see what happens."