We are building an app that we want to add social networking like features too. Our first thought was to take an open source social networking platform or a cms with community features and drop our app into it. It seems that most of these platforms seem to be organized around the idea that there is one network and everyone is part of that network, i.e. the Facebook model. A better model for our app is the Ning model. We want a new sub-network for each of our customers, and different customers don't even need to know the others exist. To further complicate things, we may at a later date want to allow very limited sharing between these sub networks. Are there open source or commercial platforms that support creating many different subnetworks/communities?
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4Are there any cms/social networking platforms that facilitate the creation of multiple communities?
Take a look at Wordpress mu (http://mu.wordpress.org/) for 'subnetworks' and maybe BuddyPress (http://buddypress.org/) for adding social networking features. Not ideal, but like you say most are based on the the 'Facebook' model such as Elgg (http://elgg.org/).
You could consider DotNetNuke. DotNetNuke has an open architecture and you can extend it by adding modules. It is open source and free, but you may need to buy a social module. One social module (Smart-Thinker) is free however. It supports creation of User Groups, which look very similar to what you are looking for.
You could take a look at the Jomsocial extension for Joomla. I haven't used it, but do use Joomla which I think is pretty good. It looks like a pretty extensive social networking extension and they have a comparison chart which includes Ning.
Also for Joomla is Community Builder which is a a free extension unlike Jomsocial.
Groupsite is a commercial offering similar to Ning: http://www.groupsite.com/
Their features page (http://www.groupsite.com/features) makes a point to mention that they offer "Full-featured Subgroups: mini Groupsites within Groupsites".