PC World’s June issue has a geat review on two build your own social network offerings. If you aspire to have your own site at no cost for your personally defined group one of these can probably get you there. Sounds like true actionist software.

Both of them have a variety of design templates and according to the article you should be able to have something operable and running in a half hour. Ning was cofounded by Netscape pioneer Marc Andreesen. If you know Cascading Style Sheets you’ll probably like working with this program.

The reviewer said Nexo didn’t allow as much flexibility but the one advantage it had over Ning - for now- is that it didn’t have adds built into it. CEO Caraig Jorasch says that will probably change in the last quarter of the year though. It also offers more pre-programmed modules than Ning.

The main thing though is to check out both and compare for yourself. You might build the next MySpace or Facebook. Or if smaller scaled visions of granduer will suffice just be sure to make your thing what you need it to be, the way you need it.