Can you think of any other known/notable families you'd like to see on there? I thought one with stock photos might be a little impersonal. But maybe that's the right call.
I wrote this as a joke then realised that it would probably actually work. Well, maybe once you've moved out of the sphere of tech early adopters. Keep it on ice for now.. then, hell, get them to invest. Just tell them Ashton Kutcher is doing it.
And people keep trying. One aspect that seems to never get brought up is divorced families. Many may not want people on one side of the family or the other to be seeing certain pics or talking to others. Having statuses read by person X mentioning person Y may not be the best thing to do.
So... introduce privacy controls? It's confusing enough for most people just to enforce a couple of rules. Trying to codify the weird world of divorce families' feelings in to a web interface will be problematic. Sure, people can just 'get over it' and 'grow up', or they can be told to, but it's not always so easy.
So, my parents are divorced. And both re-married. I totally agree that it's weird to share photos of me and my half-brother from my mom's side with the entire family on my dad's side.
And right now, it's really easy to separate them on FamilyLeaf. You just create "a new family" for your distinct branches. I have my mom's, dad's, and stepdad's families all actively sharing - but most importantly, they're separate.
Divorced and fragmented families are deep in our DNA. Our solution right now is to have separate family groups that can share members, but we're open to thinking about different ways to fix this. It's something that's very important to me.
But it sounds like you've thought about this a bit. Please drop me a line at ajay[at]familyleaf[dot]com if you get a chance. Would love to discuss it!
How are you overcoming the chicken/egg problem - getting families to join when I'm imagining that most families already just use a subset of Facebook for similar items?
It's pretty clear (ask anyone <25) that Facebook doesn't work for families. And as loved ones move away and get on with the rest of their busy lives (catalogued with products like FB, LI, and now Path/Tumblr/etc), their family is left in the dust. They try to call and email, but it's not meaningful. Older relatives keep scraps of paper or address books with everyone's information - crossed-out phone numbers, outdated addresses to send christmas cards.
We noticed this huge gap in our personal lives after leaving for college a year or two ago. And we hope that FamilyLeaf will find the solution. Family is paramount.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080217022937/http://kinzin.com/
Didn't make it, pivoted a few times. Not sure what the status right now. Unsure what the challenges were since I didn't get involve much in the business/marketing aspect of it.
Hope you guys get a better shot and be successful in this space.
This was back in early 2007 where everything (share things, social network, social media, online privacy, etc) were still relatively new and gaining steam.
From the very little figment of my memory, all I remember was that Kinzin was trying to create a social private network for family and were trying to monetize a feature that can turn pictures to photo albums to be shared with family members. The rest were still up in the air.
The marketing had probably focused on getting users to use the site first and probably did not explore as far as you mentioned: how to bring families closer online, which I think it could be the biggest value that the FamilyLeaf could offer [for now :), I'm sure there will be more in the future].
But hey, timing is important and who knows it is on your side now (^_^).
Like you, my family is thousands miles away, I see value on sites like FamilyLeaf/Kinzin. Not sure if I would use it once I'm back home though.
Looking forward to watching this develop further!
Let us know when you get a chance to try out the site and share with your global family! My grandparents all the way in Mumbai just sent in some photos this morning. They would have never been able to do that on Facebook - nor would I have accepted their friend request :)
As my father ages, he seems to get more interested in our family history and often sends mass emails about new connections he finds on ancestry.com.
I've always thought that the data from ancestry.com would be a great way to seed a new social network. It would attract a motivated, older crowd and they would add profiles for the younger generations too. Previously looked into this and genealogical data actually has a standardized format called GEDCOM[1]. It might be a useful way for users to quickly populate their pages on FamilyLeaf.
Will send this over to him, but most of his data is in GEDCOM format... either way, good luck!
I'd love your feedback (and your dad's!) on our site. My dad -- largely computer-illiterate -- is actually sharing with us via email by emailing photos to send@familyleaf.com. They automatically aggregate in our online album.
It'd be great to chat about your research on this family space. Shoot me an email? ajayumehta[at]gmail
