SocialGO, yet another social network maker

There’s another iteration of a white-label social networking site creator in town, and its name is SocialGO.

Much like the heavily funded Ning, other social networking software makers such as PeopleAggregator, SocialSpring, Kwiqq, OneSite, GoingOn, CrowdVine, Mzinga, Haystack, CollectiveX, Moli, KickApps, DZOIC, Pringo, SmallWorldLabs and about a gazillion others, SocialGO enables you to create an online community website which can be ran stand-alone or bolted onto an existing website. Features include communication stuff like (instant) messaging, content-sharing for photos and videos, blogging tools, event management tabs, an API and blah blah blah.

If you hadn’t noticed by the number of similar services I was able to find after a 5-minute search, this particular market seems to be completely saturated, and my guess is only 2 or 3 from the list I provided above will prove to be viable businesses. 

As far as I can tell, SocialGO doesn’t bring anything new to the table and is therefore remarkably late to the game. You have to wonder why UK-based Bright Things believes it can make SocialGO stand out in the crop. Jumpstarting the creation of social networks by giving away £1000 for the most ‘creative and innovative’ one is hardly going to make users aware of the service at all.

How do they plan to make a dent in the plans of Ning to become the default go-to site for creating social networks on the fly, when the Palo Alto company has someone like Marc Andreessen as Chairman and co-founder and oh … over 100 million dollars in funding? Not to mention the competition they have from existing social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, which offer customization tools to deliver a personalized networking experience for their users as well.

I’m all for taking risks and launching new web services that have a shot at appealing to a large number of people, but where’s the added value in this one? Or maybe I’m just being too cynical here, in which case you have the opportunity to convince me of the advantages of SocialGO in the comments.

(Hat tip goes to MoMB, which recently celebrated its 3rd birthday. Congrats!)