CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The create-your-own-social-network platform Ning has now produced nearly half a million social networks, with a new one created every 30 seconds, CEO and founder Gina Bianchini says. The company will launch an iPhone application on Friday. Jason Pontin, Editor of the MIT Technology Review, conducted this interview for Beet.TV on the MIT campus.

Bianchini gave a keynote speech at the MIT Technolgoy Review EmTech08 conference yesterday, and CNET News.com editor-in-chief Dan Farber blogged about it here. Robert Mitchell at Computerworld interviewed Bianchini after her speech and asked some tough questions about Ning’s advertising revenue model.

Kelsey Blodget, Associate Producer