Ning

Overall, Ning seems like it would be great for use in a work environment, if you work with people who are accepting of new technologies and willing to participate. For the comparison, I love pros and cons, so here we go:

Pros:
- can be set to be totally private, including a member log-in and new member approval
- because of privacy settings, would be good for office/school setting
- nice templates, easy to customize
- easy to set up, add/drop features
- allows personalized domain name (for a fee)
- if used in business, allows for younger employees to keep Facebook/MySpace accounts separate from work

Cons:
- hefty price for ad removal, extra storage
- if used in business, must educate users on how to use Ning
- has potential for being a timewaster ala Facebook/MySpace
- may be automatically blocked by some business networks