- It’s a great way for newspapers or any kind of content publishers to expand their presence into social network. It’s an engaging, cheap and easy way to get your readers engaged online with you — in a space that (unlike Facebook) you can still run ads and make money from. Check out http://thesunchronicle.ning.com/
- Journalists are using Ning to hone their journalism skills and pick up new ones, as well as discuss the future of the industry and new job opportunities. Check out http://mediageeks.ning.com/ and — as a former college newspaper designer/editor — my favorite, http://newspagedesigner.ning.com

I hope people continue to get inspired and create new social networks!

She’s talking about Web metrics and focusing too exclusively on page views, which satisfy the advertiser. But it seems if we look back, the same could be said about print. In Jeff Jarvis’ “What Would Google Do?” book, he notes that newspapers really served advertisers’ interests above those of readers. And look how that turned out.

News Web sites really don’t want to make that same mistake again of valuing the advertiser more than the reader/user.

I’m not saying to forget page views, but it does make sense as Patrick notes in the post, “If you care about making a great user experience, however, you’ll probably end up making money because happy consumers equals money.”

I think this is important point for news Web sites to heed.