Mashable.com, one of the biggest & most important web 2.0 blogs out there, wrote about our new version and said that 8hands' new tweaks "improve its overall service and make it more useful as a profile aggregating and media-sharing tool".

Of course, this isn't the first time Mashable wrote about us. Back in April, Mashable's Kristen Nicole wrote a post about us, saying "I really like the 8hands concept, layout and design", among other kind words.

Thanks Mashable. We love you too, and we can't wait to show you all the little surprises and huge add-ons we've got up our sleeves!

Anyone who’s someone on web 2.0 reads Mashable - one of the world's most popular blog focused exclusively on social networks. After achieving a huge amount of readers (over 3 million monthly page views) Mashable.com launched yesterday a new social network called my.mashable.

The new my.mashable network is a natural progression for Mashable that slowly but wisely became the authority regarding social networks, blogs and general web 2.0 news and reviews. Let’s just say that if an alien (or maybe just my mom) lands on earth today and wants to catch up on web 2.0 updates, then Mashable is probably the best place to send it to – when it comes to social networks Mashable is always on top of the game.

my.mashable Network is placed on the Mashable.com homepage, which gives it an easier opening point. Considering the fact that probably 99% of the Mashable readers are also active social networks users (or at least active enough to open an account), it's an almost obvious move. On the other hand – why should an active user open another social network profile?

my.mashable doesn’t offer any special or unique features yet: for now it only features a general profile system that lets you fill up links to all your social networks profiles & blogs around the web. Some new features are coming soon, but this network's essence is probably the user's various profiles. Mashable, just like your loyal servant - 8hands, understands that social networks aggregation is the future.

But why should I open yet another new profile on the web you ask? Well the answer is simple – to be famous: My.mashable is the perfect place to actually “meet” and “know” the hard core of Mashable's readers. Most of them are bloggers, high-tech professionals, network founders etc. instead of trying to promote their product on a mashable post comment, they can now just open a my.mashable profile and get the desired stage to spread their word.

What I like about my.mashable is that it’s not trying to imitate the other networks around – The Mashable people know their users very well, they are the web 2.0 experts and that’s why I believe that the my.mashable features will grow and become useful and practical.

My.mashable is not just a place to hang out and socialize – there’s no option to upload videos, pictures or write blogs. It’s all surrounded by the profiles you already use plus the Mashable latest posts, on a small shoutbox on the right side of the page.

My.mashable joins the list of social networks aggregators who offer a part of what 8hands is offering (Tabber, LinkMyBox). 8hands, unlike these web-based aggregators, gives you more control over your content and also provides real-time notifications on your desktop, without having to open a browser in order to know exactly what is happening on your various social network profiles.

The fact is that most of Mashable's readers are the people “behind” the web 2.0 world and are not common users, begs the question whether this is just another manifestation of the web 2.0 bubble. This is definitely not a network for the 14 year old girl or for the self-observed hipsters: it's a small niche community for the people who live for web 2.0, and you can trust Mashable to make a good home for them.

Don't forget to add us at my.mashable.com/my8hands

It's not a big secret that MySpace has become a huge spam swamp. I'm getting more advertisement comments and messages on my page than a popular blog gets Google AdSense. The underground feel that used to wrap MySpace in the past is total history now, and we're ready to leave our parents' house and move into a new place of our own.

In a proper web 2.0 spirit, why look for someone elses community while we can build one of our own?

Ning is an online platform for creating social websites and social networks. The websites Ning offers are built with standard PHP and the platform itself is built with Java.

Ning offers almost every feature you need in order to build your own website, with unique tools for community services. Its like taking blogs and platforms such as WordPress into a new level, while making every website into a community with friends, comments, messages and so on.

Among the features Ning offers you can find a full customization allowing you to add your own logo, branding and visual design. Email invitations, messages and notifications that are sent from your new social network share its look & feel. Ning also offers a variety of themes for your network and the ability to add custom CSS designs of your own.

Setting up your network is easy to follow and simple to use: within 5-10 min YOU ARE MySpace! Next step is to invite your friends and thats about it.

This amazing platform was created by Marc Andreessen (of Netscape fame) and Gina Bianchini, and launched its service in October 2005. Ning already holds over 30,000 different social networks!

It is much cleaner, friendly and impressive than MySpace and I can't see why it can't become the "next big thing" everyone seems to be looking for it. Ning combines videos, blogs and photos in the easiest way and provides all the tools you need in order to express yourself as a business website, an art related website or any other topic you can imagine.

One thing that is missing is a music player for bands and artists to upload songs. Although almost every band has a video in store now a days, in order to give the best alternative to MySpace I would expect Ning to provide a tool for musicians to upload not only videos but also music files.

And if you were wondering about Ning's business model, here's Gina Bianchini's explanation on how it works:

"Every free social network created on Ning gets a quota of 5GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth. This is typically more than adequate, however for an additional $9.95 per month, you can get another 5GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth.

 

On free social networks, we reserve the right to run ads. If you want to buy that right from us and run your own ads - or have no ads at all - it's an additional $19.95 per month.

 

There are a few additional premium services, such as masking your domain name which is $4.95 per month, and we plan on supporting the service with a combination of targeted advertising and premium services."

If you need tips on how to create a good online community you can find it here.

Make sure to visit the 8hands Ning community at http://eighthands.ning.com/