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New site Twingr offers the chance to set up your own microblogging community on a hosted platform - unlike previous options like Laconi.ca, which required you to install the service on your own server.

It seems like a no brainer, but I think there’s one major flaw in the service - critical mass.

One of the successful implentations of Laconica, is Leo Laporte’s TWiT Army, fed from the TWiT Netcast Network, and therefore having enough of a community and interaction to ensure a reasonably constant flow of updates. Meanwhile, there are several options for corporate enterprise solutions, notably Yammer, as a hosted microblogging platform.

But Twingr is external facing, and relies on people wanting to create a group fo sufficient interactivity to seperate itself from the crowd - yet not wanting to host the service, and therefore removing any options to monetise it.

For those small groups, a more general service like Ning would probably offer more scope for interaction, allowing you to upload images and files etc, as well as messaging and forums, meaning a stronger community from a smaller number of participants.

And there’s also no scope to check out and join existing groups, meaning that duplication and confusion may lead to ever smaller splinter groups - is there a need for microblogging for a group of 5 friends who already communicate via IM, Twitter, Facebook etc?

Having said that, if you’re interested, here’s the introductory video - and if you do use it, I’d be really interested in hearing how you get on: