Ning launches!

Ning, also known as the official name for 24 Hour Laundry‘s project, just launched. I actually had to keep myself from posting early because I was excited about it. Now that I got the word from them with the approval to post, here goes the unveiling.

Ning is, and I quote, “a free online service (or, as we like to call it, a Playground) for building and using social applications. Social apps are web applications that enable anyone to match, transact, and communicate with other people”.

NingSo, what does this mean for the global audience? A whole lot. It means anyone can now get their ideas out there and build a project (some people would call it a mash-up) in a few clicks, with no developer experience. And if you are a developer, you can pop under the hood and change it to your liking, no questions asked.

The reason why I’m excited about it is simple: allowing people to build cool new stuff that they normally wouldn’t (empowering the users) is one of the best things you can do on the Web 2.0 space. If you think about it, back when blogging started it was also about allowing people to do things they weren’t able to before – publish content online. This is it, all over again, but instead of blogs, you get to build cool apps.

This being said, get out there and try it. And we at TechCrunch definitely want to see what you come up with too, so drop us a note if you’re using Ning to build cool stuff. To the 24 Hour Laundry guys: congratulations for the launch!