worship guy said that he uses ning to participate in two different networks: family and church. i use multiply similarly, only i use it for friends and family (sometimes together, sometimes separately, but generally all through my personal multiply site) as well as for church (through a group) and several other affinity groups (also through groups). and what i love about multiply that has frustrated me when i've tried to use ning is that on multiply everthing's integrated. so though i have a separate church group that is entirely distinct from the debate group i'm a part of, i get alerts about new posts from either group all in one handy place (the inbox) making it easier to keep up with what's going on no matter where the action is happening (whether on friend's personal sites or in community groups). on ning i found that i had to go to each network separately to keep up to date on what was happening. not only that, but i often had to sign up separately to get into each section of ning as well. i found that to be a major pain in the rear.