Genoom, Huge Family Tree Extending to China

If you run a family-centric site, I bet you can not forget China, although none of those family-centric sites has rocked Chinese market yet. We got in touch with Bob Samii, Marketing Director of Genoom.com which is reported as the 3rd largest social networking site (with 3.5millions user profiles) focusing on connecting families.

Genoom is created by David Díaz Daré, now CEO of the company. The project started in March 2007 and its beta version was first launched in July. In Genoom, users can add family trees, personal information, photos, videos, and related documents about ancestors and living relatives alike, limiting access to uploaded information through invitations and custom group privacy settings.

Available in 16 different languages, Genoom recently also added Chinese language support. We talked to Bob who kindly shared his understanding of the product and the business:

The key features of Genoom

- Multilingual: now translated in 17 languages with a big focus on Spanish-speaking countries;

- Fast-loading AJAX platform and most others are Flash-based;

- Facebook application which allows users to access and build their family trees within FaceBook accounts.

- the first site support GEDCOM.

Keep the idea simple: Discover and stay in touch with your family

“Some of other sites are more focused on the research and genealogy discovery aspect, e.g. Ancestry.com has a DNA test service, but our intention is to create more of a family-oriented communication tool. Just like Facebook is for your friends, LinkedIn is for your business contacts, Genoom is for staying in touch with your family within a private, secure network.” Bob said, “There still isn’t any clear winner, as you noted, but we believe that family-based social networking is poised to be a massive market.”

Chinese market has Big potential, but how-to?

Localizing Genoom in Chinese is more than just the translation and it is important to understand and know the peculiarities of the Chinese culture. Bob told me they had hired a person from China to join the team who will be responsible in supporting their efforts in China. It is a good move, but it also reminds me two things, Geni used to set up an office in Shanghai but closed it after a year; Kindo which is now merged with MyHeritage has also hired a Chinese staff based in London. So which can be the first truly grabs Chinese users?

The revenue: ads and charge for services

the primary income source can split between advertising and charge for services. The advertising can be combined with paying accounts, which will offer additional services to the user. “In the next phase, we foresee utilizing other income ways, such as commercialization of objects related to the family.” Bob mentioned.

David Diaz Daré said, “By adding Chinese language support to the Genoom network, we’re able to connect a large population to family members both locally and globally, unlike other family networking sites. Our goal is to make Genoom as internationally accessible as possible, to connect even distant family in ways previously not available due to geography and language barriers.” The insight is absolutely brilliant, but eventually waking up the family tree market is still not an easy-to-do and note that the competition is already tough.

November 6, 2008 · Filed Under Family Tree

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Famento, Focus On Your Life and Your Family Story

We believe that the family-centered social networks can be more than building the Family Trees and they will be accepted as an efficient way to connect family members as well as friends. Famento, a new service just launched its beta version yesterday has the similar insight. It encourages people: share your family stories.

Famento lets you keep in touch with people you care about, and tell them about your life using photos, videos, stories, and more. In the beta version, users can create profiles, write stories about them, their family members and friends, upload photos, publish events, invite friends and write lifecast (miniblog), etc. Famento is a social network but different from many others: It keeps a private network of people that you care about; It focus on sharing deep content about your life and your family history; It keeps all of your family members (live and deceased), and the stories of their lives connected in one network.

Famento is a privately funded company based in San Francisco. Its co-founders, Lauren Kwan and Kevin Chen also founded XTimeline, a service launched last year lets users create and contribute to the timeline on any subject. No surprise, the XTimeline service has been integrated into Famento so that the family stories can be nicely organized.

Lauren has built a public tribute for her grandmother Ye Mei Shuang where you can better understand what Famento can serve you. Some new features such as Family trees and groups will be rolled out soon.

August 13, 2008 · Filed Under China Web2, Family Tree