Gina Bianchini Replaced As Ning CEO By COO Jason Rosenthal

Ning CEO Gina Bianchini is being replaced as the CEO of Ning by COO Jason Rosenthal. Bianchini founded the DIY network of social networks with Marc Andreessen. But after five and half years at the helm, she is ready to try something new. She will transition to an entrepreneur in residence role at Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm started by Andreessen.

In a blog post, Andreessen (who remains chairman of Ning) notes:

Ning today is one of the world’s top social networking properties, with more than 2.3 million user-created Ning Networks and more than 45 million registered users, and is far and away the market leading social platform for interests and passions. Ning Networks span every area of human endeavor, from the arts to business, politics to social activism, and every other field you can think of. Over 5,000 new Ning Networks are created every day, and we’re adding a million new registered users every 12 days

Over the past year, Ning’s unique worldwide visitors have doubled to 20.7 million, according to comScore, which is still much smaller than other social networks such as Hi5 (46.5 million) or LinkedIn (42.8 million). But at least it’s bigger than Friendster’s 15 million. Andreessen notes that Ning will continue on the same course under Rosenthal.

Bianchini appeared earlier this week on Charlie Rose, and we caught up with here recently at Davos where Mike interviewed her on video.