My family is scattered.
Both of my grandmothers are feisty old women: one lives in North Carolina with my aunt, the other recently moved to a nursing home in rural Maryland.
My parents and brother live in the Caribbean: sometimes in St. Thomas, USVI, and sometimes on a rainforest coffee plantation in the interior of Puerto Rico.
All of my sisters live near Disney Resorts: two in Orlando, FL, and the other in southern California.
That’s just my closest biological family. When you add the extended family and the dear friends who might as well be family, we’re scattered even more widely.
Recently, I tried to find a better way to connect us online, a medium that was simple to use for the computer-phobes, but with enough bells and whistles to make it worth my while.
Online Family Network Options
All the family social networks allow you to share photos, videos, and stories within a password-protected environment.
Famundo
Famundo – This online family calendar and family hub is free (with ads) or $9.95/month. The Family Library allows you to store photos, documents, and other family stuff.
However, you can get these features at no cost within any of the general group sites such as: Google Sites, Nings, or Yahoo Groups.
What sets a Family Social Network apart is the ability to create a Family Tree that visually links your friends and family.
Famiva
Famiva – is short on bells and whistles, but it’s easy to use and FREE. My father, a newcomer to the Internet, was able to start uploading photos right away. It’s easy to navigate, and has a Home page where you can see at a glance anything that other members have uploaded recently.
In additional to the traditional Family Tree view, you can view members within an interactive Family Network Graph. Other features include Events, Calendar, and Maps.
My Family
MyFamily – $29.95/year. Coolness Factor: Site Themes and Voice Messages. Other features: Photo Stories, Family File Cabinet, and Automatic Back Ups.
MyFamily.com has come a long way since we first started using it nearly ten years ago. It has simple navigation with a central home page, easy uploads for photos and videos, and a What’s New page for at-a-glance updates. Best of all, it’s affiliated with Ancestry.com so you can upload a GEDCOM family tree. And, the price is sill reasonable.
Still, we stopped using this site a few years back, not just to save money, but because we weren’t using it. I found it too simple, too restrictive. I couldn’t share information my own way. Looking over the site, I already see that it lacks a Feed Sharing option so we wouldn’t be able to easily share our personal blogs and other social networks.
Amiglia
Amiglia – 1 Year Free Trial, $49.95/year thereafter. Lots of bells and whistles, but at a moderate cost. In addition to all the features on Famiva, you also get music uploads for slideshows and Skype calls and chat. Other features include a Facebook interface, Recipes, Games, Family Places, and listings for Family Pets.
Famster
Famster – 2 Week Free Trial, $9.95/month thereafter. Huge coolness factor. The Theme Park feature allows you to customize the look of the site, and you can create cartoon avatars of all the family members in the Character Studio. Other features: mobile uploads, domain names, Famster IM, Scrapbooks, Recipes, Share Links, and a News Center (where you can share your homepage feeds.)
I couldn’t resist the promise of super-coolness, and gave this site a whirl. At first, it seemed perfect – until I realized that it’s not set up to be a network. It’s more of a central distribution center where one administrator doles out permissions for even the most basic options like the photo upload.
None of the Above
Since there is no expense involved, our family has been using Famiva. I’m glad that I didn’t sign up for one of the costlier sites, as we’ve found that online hubs aren’t that useful for a family that – for the most part – doesn’t use computers.
All of these sites are great, with enough feature to keep anyone busy, but the viability of any online family network depends on its members. If most of your family members are only somewhat familiar with the most basic technology (ex. Email or Google search,) and many don’t know how to get online at all (we have several of those in my family,) then you might as well forget about connecting them online.
For now, I’ve tabled this project with my family. I’m going to try to spoon feed digital technology in baby steps. Can we say, Email Newsletter anyone?
Have you had any success connecting your family online? What programs or online sites have you used?
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting post.
I am a little confused cause you knock some sites over the lack of advanced features but then mention that getting the family to use these sites is tough anyway – I guess due to technical complexity?
I think there is no perfect medium and the growth of some family sites into mini social networks is not easy but clearly a trend.
Can u explain this comment more – what would the feed sharing do exactly?
I found it too simple, too restrictive. I couldn’t share information my own way. Looking over the site, I already see that it lacks a Feed Sharing option so we wouldn’t be able to easily share our personal blogs and other social networks.
Hi Sandra,
Just wanted to let you know that Famento is another FREE option for families to connect online. Our service is focused on having you tell your life stories, to current friends and family, and future generations. All of us have our favorite stories to tell about shared experiences with family and friends. Famento makes it easy for you record your own stories, and also submit stories about others.
Would love to hear your feedback about our site!
Best,
Lauren
Famento, Co-Founder
Famento is a fabulous site in that it allows you to share stories and photos. However, I decided not to give it a try for our family as it did not provide a way of sharing a family tree or other multimedia.
Michael, like many families, my relatives have different levels of technical expertise and familiarity with different media. A few are barely mastering Email, but others have personal blogs or accounts in social media sites such as Facebook or You Tube. I’d like to find an online family network, with a family tree option, that also allows you to bring in these feeds.
Ideally, I’d like a FriendFeed, set up for families with a family tree, that allows members to chat informally like Twitter, but also to collect stories permanently into a chronological framework.
It’s a tall order, but that would be my dream family site, and that’s something I would be willing to pay to get.
Interesting post. I don’t think my family would be up to the challenge of socializing on the web. Maybe in the future!
Anne
There’s a HUGE variance in the computer useage in my family (she said, having just finished printing out the first year of her blog to send to her mother, who won’t go on-line and look for it because she’s afraid someone will reach through the computer, grab her purse, and get her credit card – GAH!) and I’m always stumped how to share stuff that I really want to and make it EASY.
Great suggestions!
Keep us posted if you find anything that works well for everyone (I know, a tall order).
Lots of family options like Cozi, Qlubb, even Ning. I don’t think any have a family tree though as you had mentioned in an earlier post but thought I’d throw some of these great sites in there.
Hi Sandra,
I totally agree that family tree is a key functionality for families. We’re rolling out that new feature soon.
On multimedia – we do have video embeds, file sharing, as well as ability to organize life stories into a timeline. We want to make sure we offer all the key functionality families want, but not clutter it with too much “noise” and also not scare away family members who aren’t technology driven. Your FriendFeed like feature idea is an interesting one, so we’ll definitely take it under advisement.
Thanks for your feedback!
Best,
Lauren
I prefer Facebook. It’s free and I can connect with both family and friends easily.