Ning Launches

One of the least stealthy stealth start-ups has launched and their name is Ning.  Ning is:

"a free online service (or, as we like to call it, a Playground) for building and using social applications.  Social apps are web applications that enable anyone to match, transact, and communicate with other people."

Basically, they've created a development environment that lets the user roll their own social applications.  I haven't played with it, but is sounds like mash-ups for the masses.  It should be fun to watch what people come up with in this social app lab.

Tech Crunch and Om Malik have deeper reviews of Ning.  BTW and somewhat unrelated, I'm finding Tech Crunch to be a very useful site for keeping up the with rapidly growing number of Web 2.0/social app start-ups.  If you haven't been to Tech Crunch, you should check it out.