I've blogged about Ning before. It's a great, free tool (with some premium options) for setting up a social network for either a public or private community. I've decided to put it to the test properly by setting up a Ning social network for London Wiki Wednesdays. In any case, the SocialText URLs for our wiki pages aren't exactly memorable, so I decided it was about time we had our own domain name, and place to meet online as well as physically.

You can go to either londonwikiwednesdays.com (which might not work until a few hours from now), but which redirects you to londonwikiwed.ning.com (which is live now). The site has:

• An explanation of what wiki wednesdays are all about
• A link to the event wiki for the next one on 6 June so you can book yourself on
• Link to the London Wiki Wednesday wiki page so you can see all the past events
• The ability to upload photographs of previous events, or anything relevant - photos from the last two are already there
• Links to useful wiki resources
• Blog posts that are tagged with londonwikiwed or wikiwed, which appear automatically on the site
• Some videos loaded up, and you can load more
• A forum for questions and answers
• Blog capability so that any Ning user can add posts
• It's public, so anyone can join in (but certain things are moderated to keep out anything inappropriate)

Hopefully we'll get plenty of suggestions of other things we could do, and when I've got more time we'll do some Grazr widgets.

If you come to London Wiki Wednesdays, or you are interested in wikis and social media, please get yourself a Ning user ID and join in.

This doesn't change the procedure for booking on to the event, so please go to the wiki and make sure you join us on 6 June at Conchango. I look forward to seeing you there (and on Ning).