Website of the Week - Geni.com - Technology Evangelist

In an effort to give you even more video content we are premiering another new feature this week on TechnologyEvangelist. Website of the Week will be a video look at some new and interesting websites out there that you might not have heard of. Ed Kohler will be doing hours of research by surfing the web and finding the best of new websites out there. This week we start with a genealogical website Geni.com.

Full Transcript:

Hello, I am Ed kohler with Technology Evangelist, and we are starting a new feature called website of the week, where we will preview one website and tell you not just that the site exists, but something interesting about that site though. Help you figure out why that site might be a valuable site, we are checking out. So starting today, we are going to kick it off with geni.com which is a new genealogical website with a web2.0 twist on it. So let’s take a look. First time you come to geni.com, you see a very simple homepage where all it does is, ask you for your first name and last name, e-mail and gender.

Once you signed up with the website you can then start building your family tree by adding your parents, your brothers and sisters, cousins, children; who ever it may be. The beauty of the site is every time you add a new person into the website you can also add in their e-mail address which then invites them into your network and they can then build out who they know from your family tree as well. So over a time your tree will grow and grow as more people get involved and add information they know. So you can really work together with your family to build out your family tree in a very interesting way because it’s free livable document, so let’s geni.com. Go about to Technology Evangelist if you get a chance and let us know what you think of this site if it’s valuable for your family.

Geni is the best way to build your family tree.
I thought my family was limited to those people I know.
now it took a whole new dimension.
Love it!

I've used Geni since the start of it in January and together with my familymembers have 10.000 of relatives added. We even use it to exchange (old) familypictures and stories. The first couple of newborns are announced as well. It's really easy to use and makes genealogy very interesting for all. Furthermore the Geni-team appreciates the input of its users and they use it to improve the programm. I just love Geni!

Hey Check out the German Version of this service at http://www.familyone.de . It seems to be a copycat but it works 100% the same.

OK, this website is the most awesome website there is. It's just amazing how you can create your family tree, i started 3 weeks ago and my family tree is 820 people already. It's still growing, they started to add pictures, messages, the new calendar feature is awesome, the Discussion board too, and when they fix the Map feature, i just can't wait to see it. I think that this website is going to be one of the most clicked websites in short time. Another Youtube like enterprise that kicks ass.

Famiva is another good one, family tree, google map, photos and family stories. We've got more than 100 relatives on there in a day. Everyone loves it and keeps coming back for latest photos. We also tried myheritage.com, which is also nice.

I was wondering when you were so quick in commending Geni, did you also investigate how someone can delete their account? I have combed through every feature and FAQ and its not possible once created.

THe identity theft is great and the motive to get access to that information by fraudsters is greater than the company's ability to protect people's identities and keep information safe.

Annalie, have you tried contacting Geni? I'm sure they would be able to help you delete your account if you decide the service doesn't interest you.

Geni.com looks great and the collaboration thing is great BUT it is very limited with what you can insert compared to software like myheritage.com

I find that Geni.com do not have any security features. Anybody can modify records. Further how do we have a back up of your part of the tree? Can any body clarify on this.

I use Hellotree www.hellotree.com which is similar. My whole family has joined our tree and its great for sharing photos.

First let me thank you for featuring Geni in this post. You did a great job. Second, i wanted to respond to a few of the comments:

@Myles - We do not currently have a feature that supports adoption. However, we are working on it and hope to have it available soon.. Also, I want to mention that we support any other type of relationship except for adoption. That even includes inter family relations (eg brother marries sister)

@Annalie - Ed is right. At any time you can remove your account. Simply send a removal request to help[at]geni[dot]com and we will be glad to assist you.

@Haridasan - You can control whether others can edit the unclaimed Profiles that you add to the Tree, through your Managed Profile settings. Also, you can export and download the content within your Tree via a GEDCOM Export. FYI... GEDCOM is the genealogical standard for saving or moving genealogical content.

Since this post, we have added some other great features such as Tree-Merging, Video Uploads, Anniversary Reminders and Greetings, along with many others. Once again, thanks for the great post. If anyone has any additional questions we urge them to participated in our Forum at forum.geni.com

Comments

1. Posted by: myles on May 1, 2007 10:00 PM:

geni.com rocks. its missing a couple of helpful features (like adopting between families so one person is linked to 2 sets of parents - more common than you think!) BUT it is dead simple to use and very viral amongst family members.

It uses great web 2.0 features, design and simplicity! its well thought out....and they have a good release schedule for new features.

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