Somewhere between a full blown community portal and blogging is a small niche -- multi-user blogging.

The idea is that you run a site and allow each member to have their own blog, and it's all connected under one content management system.

If this sounds interesting, and you're looking for software to do it, you might want to check out WordPress MU, (the MU stands for Multi User).

If you're looking to have more features and want everything controlled under a single unified login / user management model, take a look at "BuddyPress", (still in BETA, but looks promising).

BuddyPress is an extension for WordPress MU that adds most of the common social media functionality -- "friending", media galleries, user-to-user messaging, chat, forums, user activity streams and more.

If the software is anything like WordPress in reagrds to being easy to install, easy to configure, and attracts even some of the legions of plug-in, widget and theme developers that make WordPress better than most other blogging software, then BuddyPress is sure to be a hit.

Interactive, Engaging, Shareable

Social Media Software is the name given to the type of online content management systems that allow users to interact with the website, to engage others in various types of online communication and to share information in many digital formats -- from text and photos to audio and video media.

While there are many software platforms that allow someone to create a blog, a chat-room, a message forum, photo gallery, and other systems for building a website where multiple users contribute and interact with the information, there are now several Swiss Army Knife application suites that tie all the user management and content management features together under a single unified interface.

The deciding factor for many organizations and the website developers who have to build the sites and the webmasters who will manage them is whether the software is a hosted solution, (also called "SaaS" or "Software as a Serivce"), and software which can be downloaded or purchased in box and installed on your own web server. Some solutions are available in both SaaS and DIY, ("Do It Yourself" - install and manage), varieties.

Typically, SaaS applications are faster and easier to set up, but are usually limited in how much customization can be done. On the other hand, install-it-yourself type software may be more difficult to install and configure, but since most web based software is written in a server-side scripting language such as Php, Perl, ASP or other, the customer is free to modify and customize the software to their liking.

The field for Social Media CMS packages has really opened up lately, and no single article could review and compare all available platforms, features, options and pricing models. For more info, read the individual reviews in our Social Media section and check out some of the available solutions they link to.

KickApps - "white label" social medial software.

The hosted KickApps platform allows developers to create online communities from scratch or integrate social media functionality into existing CMS based sites.

Kickapps is marketed with two pricing models; FREE, and a CPM, (cost per thousand), pageview based pricing structure. Under the free pricing model, Kickapps displays advertising on the communities web pages, but provides a navigation column skyscraper ad space where the community's developer can run Google Adsense or other advertising.

Kickapps prvodes software to easily setup a Web 2.0 community with video, photo, and audio media file sharing.

Community members can interact with the community in a variety of ways including uploading of video and photo media from mobile devices. Each member gets a personal profile pages, (with it's own unique URL), which ties together their media uploads, blogs, forum messages and other aspects of their involvement in the community.

Kickapps is used on many national and international sites to either provide social networking functionality, or is used to create the entire site. Some of the sites include the Guinness' Book of World Records, the Rachel Ray Show, the San Francisco 49-ers Fan Site and National Public Radio (NPR) "Get My Vote" site. The following screen shots are actual KickApps websites, (click links below each one to visit the site).

KickApps powers the Rachek Ray Incredible People social networking site features.

www.rachaelrayshow.com

KickApps powers the Sand Francisco 49ers Faithful Fan Site

www.49ersfaithful.net

KickApps powers National Public Radio (NPR) GetMyVote Political site.

www.npr.org/getmyvote

Setting up a KickApps community was straightforward, fast and took under 5 minutes. You simply create an account, name your community, pick a theme, and go! The online setup tool gives you a temporary URL and a link to the site administration tools as soon as you're done. In less than 2 minutes you receive an email from KickApps with the permanent URL for the site, ("www.kickapps.com/example" if you named your community "example"). The email contains tips and links to help you get your site going.

In addition to the default URL, Kickapps allows you to use your own domain name and will do DNS masking so the site appears as your own. White label refers to the fact that you can re-brand the software as you like and do not have to have advertise that the site is a KickApps community.

I launched the "Affiliate Center", (which is what they call the site's back end management area). and with very little effort quickly customized the default template I had chosen.

I'd recommend KickApps for any organization looking for a hosted solution, although if you are running a commercial website and plan to monetize it with advertising revenue, you may want to look around a bit more as KickApps takes the prime advertising spots on your the site for their own PPC ads. I have not contacted them (yet) regarding the CPM paid pricing model. This story will be updated as ned information is available.

NOTE: Be sure to checkout our Social Media Software Roundup page for details and to compare KickApps to other Web 2.0 application suites.

Common Name: Ning

Niche: general purpose - Social Media Software

Slogan: "Create Your Own social Network for Anything"

What they say about themselves: "Marc [Andreessen] and I founded Ning in October 2004 to give everyone the opportunity to create your own social networks for anything. Today Ning powers the largest number of social networks on the Internet." - Gina Bianchini, CEO and co-founder

What I say about Ning: I like it! It's fast and easy to setup a new account and start building your network. The interface is easy to customize and you can add or remove features as you like.

Publish blogs, video and photo galleries, news articles, event calendars, setup chat rooms and groups, and start adding members. Invite and "friending" features and a complete user management system let admins control who and what is on their network.

Ning is a FREE hosted solution, (they monetize the sites by placing advertising on your pages).

Ning offers "Premium Services" which for small fees allow you to remove all Ning branding, use your own domain name, control advertising, or add additional disk space and bandwidth to the 10GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth they include in the free service.

For about $35/mo you can have a totally white label solution that you can build your own social network on -- and all your members can build out their own spaces on your site.

www.ning.com

Common Name: NetModular

Niche: SaaS - social Networking for Business

What they say about themselves: "Netmodular sites are not part of some amateur Network, we create beautiful and effective Social Networks that delight users and enhance your brand." -Jesse Tayler, CEO, Netmodular Community"

What I say about NetModular: At $9500 for setup and $10k a year, NetModular is aiming to shake a few bucks from the corporate blog wanna be's -- as Frank Zappa would say, "strictly commercial"... although I think Frank would have hired someone else if he was around for Web 2.0.

www.netmodular.com