Facebook, as almost everyone knows, is a social networking site that has quickly emerged to be the market leader with the tag line “Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you.” Ning is a little less well known, but it is a platform co-founded by Mark Andreessen that allows anyone to “create your own social network for anything.” Almost any way you slice it, these two companies look like natural competitors, with very different approaches to the social networking space. In turn, it’s fairly interesting to hear that Marc Andreessen is poised to join the Board of Directors for Facebook- does anyone care to speculate as two what these two companies may be able to get up to together? I’ve personally heard a lot speculation (or perhaps I should call it postulation) about a future where each of us will have a single online identity point which links directly to our other points of presence on the web – could this be a step in that direction?