The success of Facebook is well known to most people. But Facebook is not the only social networking service that has been seeing bright times in recent days. Ning, a social networking company started by Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini announced Series C funding of $44 million.

The question remains whether Ning is an exception or are social networking companies still hot? Ning’s pedigree certainly helps, but user adoption has been good. The company, which provides a platform for anyone to set up a social network, currently boasts over 7000 networks. In a way, this is not too different from user communities that have come up around certain topics inside Facebook, or on sites like Wetpaint. The difference is that providing a platform for social networks is what Ning is complete focussed upon. Om Malik notes that social networks are a commodity. I can’t disagree. Providing some form of social networking functionality has become relatively passe. So is Ning worth that much? The answer is probably yes, and while Ning will probably continue to grow, I wonder if there is any room for general networks, a la Facebook? My guess is that the current crop of Facebooks, MySpace, Bebo, etc will not add any real competitors, but there is probably more room for platforms like Ning. Of course, with news of Yahoo and Google looking at social networking, you never know when social networks will reach a saturation point.