Since I joined TechCrunch I’ve seen more Twitter clones and derivatives then I’d care to remember, most of which haven’t really gone anywhere. But there are a few gems that have managed to tackle markets that Twitter has, for whatever reason, ignored. One of these is Yammer, the “Twitter for businesses” that won the top prize at last year’s TechCrunch50. And in the last few days, it’s become increasingly clear to me that there’s another niche market just waiting for a Twitter-like service: Family.
Earlier this week I was talking to TechCrunch alum (and rockstar dev) Henry Work, who told me he was thinking of setting up a Yammer account with the sole purpose of keeping in touch with his immediate family. It’s a fantastic idea — Yammer allows for secure, private communication, offers an iPhone app, SMS support, and a web client, and is free for basic functionality. Even better: the company has just comfirmed that it’s planning to offer Push notifications for its iPhone app in the near future, which would help cut back on SMS costs.
It’s not hard to think of countless ways that a family-oriented Yammer group could come in handy, especially for families with children who are still in school. Need someone to pick up the kids from baseball practice? Send out a message and see if a spouse or older sibling can help, without having to wade through a game of phone tag. Quickly send out reminders that you’re heading to Grandma’s house in the morning to make sure nobody sleeps in. And, of course, you can hold nightly polls to figure out what’s for dinner.
But there’s one hitch. Yammer only accepts users with company Email addresses — you can’t just fill in your Gmail account and get started. Anyone looking to use Yammer in this fashion would have to register their own domain name and create a new Email account for each family member. In other words, it’s not something that the vast majority of the population is going to be doing any time soon.
I’m sure there are a handful of under-appreciated startups that have had this very idea, but a quick Google search for “Twitter for families” doesn’t reveal any obvious choices. In fact, most of the relevant links are articles talking about people who actually do use Twitter itself to talk to their families. I suppose that would work if you kept all of your tweets private and didn’t want to let anyone other than your family members follow you, but that doesn’t seem practical.
So here’s what we need: a Yammer-like service that allows for easy signups (rather than use domains to restrict registrations, it could simply require approval from the family’s account admin). Monetization could involve premium features (calendar reminders?) or perhaps a low monthly fee. Given that it already has the technology, Yammer could obviously build something like this fairly quickly — they could even use it to further extend the Geni brand (Yammer was a Geni spin-off). And if they don’t do it, someone else should.
facebook.com
+1 [but i don't like 2 char comments, so let's say i was about to say the same thing]
obviously
Yeah – I thought that’s what Facebook was for.
Facebook has a “family” setting?
no.
Yes. You create lists of select “friends.” I have a family list that I use.
Some people go so far as to limit their friends to family only — or they create a dedicated profile just for that purpose.
bingo.
My thoughts as well –
Hey – look how young Michael J. Fox is in that pic – OMG
HollyM
http://www.thessayist.com
I don’t think Facebook is necessarily the best place for families. It’s huge, not as private as you might like, it doesn’t provide easy or safe options for (small) children or grandparents to participate, and your data is used for commercial (advertisment) reasons.
http://www.glubble.com has Twitter for families, Events, safe Kids browsing and a cool Family photo service called the Family Timeline.
See this TechCrunch post:
http://www.tech...ith-your-family
So what’s the business model? Facebook is free, and uses advertising to cover costs / pull a profit.
What’s a better solution?
But the question is as foolish as “is there a Facebook for families?”
I don’t think Facebook is good for that. A simple system is sometimes better. Facebook has too many features and way too many things that could lead to potential problems. In addition it might not be suitable for all ages.
This is just twitter with groups, which will hopefully exist soon. I guess it could be built currently and integrated with twitter, send a dm to @twitfamilies (meh?) with [family id] message, like: “@twitfamilies [1] Wedding friday, don’t forget to attend!” and then it broadcasts to all members of this family.
but really, an entire site for it? Doubtful it would work.
agreed. anyways facebook is twitter without the spam and ugly teal color.
no spam on fb? Why do I get michael jackson updates still? I didnt sign up for them…
i am starting to work on it. !!! hmm should be done by xmas!
Private family groups in facebook, I set one up for my family but we don’t use it at all http://www.read...or_families.php
or you could just call your family. you know, b/c you actually give a shit about them unlike legions of followers
Because it’s improbable or unthinkable to want to do something else besides talk to them on the phone directly.
8========D~~ Dinner is served for Driftwood!
When we are talking about Twitter again I was wondering is there ( sure it is ) a widget,plugin or script that can show latest tweet ( from everyone ) about particular word on blogs? Thanks!
I don’t see the value in that unless you have a large family. My family runs just fine without a feed telling me where everyone is at.
Twitter for families, take a look at Ramamia. http://www.crun...company/ramamia
Hey everyone,
We made this at Ramamia.com . We didn’t brand it as “Twitter for families”, but it’s exactly that. Been in beta for about 7 months with good usage so far and passionate users. Feel free to email us founders [at] ramamia.com if you have any questions.
-Jason
dude, http://www.ramamia.com/ gave me a “Ruby on rails application could not be started” page. refreshed once and got the right page.
i don’t know any person that has unlimited data but not unlimited text. is this an old person thing? this idea would save zero dollars for anyone i know and be no more convenient.
Uh….iphone users perhaps. Unlimited data plan. Why would you pay for SMS when you can just email them.
I am currently using Facebook to stay in touch with my extended family, cousins and aunts/uncles, but I still call my brothers and father. Plus my family is not all that internet savvy, they use it and can chat but utilizing new technologies is still a little ways off.
Geni should be doing this.
Because Twitter is so profitable, we should now create micro-versions of it for every niche market we can think of…
What’s that? Twitter isn’t profitable? It doesn’t make any money at all? It’s like a utility that doesn’t charge for its services? And it still has a 60% drop-out rate?
Then why are we discussing it as a model for anything but a Dilbert cartoon?
using yammer for families is brilliant.
theres a need for it, our app (which i won’t use your comments to even bring up, because thats not how i roll) is being used that way.
This is why you should stick to blogging.
I think Ning would be the best solution for families to stay connected.
A family network could be set to private invite only with the network creator (Dad or Mom) having the ability to approve all members.
Best of all, it’s 100% free! Hmmmmm?
Thanks for the technical insight, Mike.
Laconica.com. Tada. Some “dev” can just install it, and there you go, prebuilt Twitter, with groups already installed.
Seriously, slow press day?
There are plenty of other applications out there that already do this.
I visit or call my family if I want to contact them. Also, I wouldn’t particularly want them following me, as I sometimes bad-mouth friends of there’s, or say when they’re annoying me etc.
There’s a large “gap” in the family sharing model — not only from a status sharing perspective, but also from a media sharing perspective. I’d love to see a YouTube/Flickr/Facebook for family app.
It surprises me that Geni hasn’t offered this yet. It would be a great addition to their premium plan. Most of my family members are already set up with Geni accounts and I wouldn’t need to convince them to join yet another service.
Yeah, cos my 80 year old grandma will ‘get’ it.
This is the stupidest idea yet! There’s already facebook, texting and actual phone calls. Please let’s add one more technology that grandpa has to figure out. Brilliant Mr. Kincaid.
A family could install JaikuEngine, the open-source version of Jaiku and run it free on AppEngine (unless they were a *very* large family).
See: http://code.goo.../p/jaikuengine/
Or, they could bring up an instance of Laconi.ca (open-source version of Identi.ca)
See: http://laconi.ca
bob wyman
We’ve been focusing on small groups at Plum since March. Families turns out to be the sweet spot. We’ve got 77% participation rates in our active small groups.
Avg FB user has 120 friends. Posting something there is too public for families. Not the same as posting and commenting in small private groups.
Its called Twitter. Protected updates. Etc.
Microsoft Vine was created exactly for this purpose:
http://www.vine.net/
“Since I joined TechCrunch I’ve seen more Twitter clones and derivatives THEN I’d care to remember, most of which haven’t really gone anywhere.”
In terms of revenue, Twitter hasn’t gone anywhere, either.
This would be perfect for Cozi to tackle, especially since they sort of already do this.
With all due respect, this seems like a TERRIBLE business idea, Jason. Why do families need this? I highly doubt anyone would pay for this service if it were real. Facebook is good enough. Why? The Twitter concept is more about one-to-many communication, whereas Facebook is closer to one-to-one, or closed network communication, similar to email in some ways, but with a much richer media experience (photos, etc.).
the twitter concept you mentioned is WHY is is a great idea. but hey, ramamia.com is already doing this
By all means, I stand to be proven wrong. But I don’t think I will be because no one will pay for this service. Some ideas that may be valuable as web services do not necessarily need to or can be self sustaining businesses, that is what many entrepreneurs fail to reailize. It doesn’t mean that that idea shouldn’t be done, just that it’s naive to think you can always make a business out of it.
Jason, how can I reach you by email? I don’t want to spam the comments with my site (got in trouble for that over on CrunchGear last week!).
Interesting, but I don’t really see why families will need another medium to “communicate” over when there are Facebook, Twitter and email.
I use http://dinofido.com for communicating with my family. They have a simple interface. Actually, I also use it for a couple of other groups too. All my messages organized as conversations is nice.
no one will really compete with them unless they come out with a better idea
I launched Twitter for Muslims last week, its also family friendly. http://www.ummah24.com
Yeah, Facebook would do the job and make it easier to share pictures and the like, as families like to.
But it always frustrates me when anyone asks why they can’t have Twitter for business, or families, or whatever. Twitter is just a communication method; it isn’t “verticalised”. Use it for what you want. To use it for your family, set up an account with protected tweets and invite your famiy members as followers. Surely that would do the job?
You could easily do the same for work colleagues and I think people do. Hence Yammer getting nowhere since winning TC50…
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Your family is extremely precious – Don’t neglect it. @ http://bit.ly/n6HuE
Great idea–
We actually just deployed a Status Update feature in Genoom a few months ago and are starting to see a lot of our users using this tool for short communications, as you mention.
One key point, when dealing with families, is to offer grouping/filtering functionality which has been a key element for Genoom. In other words, what you “Tweet” for your cousins might not be something you want to share with your grandparents, or vice versa…
http://www.glubble.com has Twitter for families, Events, safe Kids browsing and a cool Family photo service called the Family Timeline.
See this TechCrunch post:
http://www.tech...th-your-family/
This is what I did with MusterBlog (musterblog.com). The idea is to allow for multiple groups public/private where you can share links, videos, documents, pictures. You can cross-post between groups as long as the admin has allowed it. The idea I had was I wanted to share pics with family members but did not want to make them publicly available. I have tested the idea with many people and they all said why not just use tumblr, but it was not quite what I was going for. I would love any feedback as this is still a work in progress.
This is easy to figure out. I’m sure some has already thought about it.
http://www.familylink.com : it’s streaming for families, ie twitter for families.
This is a brilliant idea. I’m wondering if someone already has a ready service
Jason,
It seems like a good idea. I expect many products to evolve around “Twitter for “.
BTW, we just launched yet another “Twitter For Enterprises”. Check this: http://bit.ly/Px6bD
Rohit Nadhani
http://www.logmytask.com
Wee Web (www.wee-web.com) functions as a Twitter for families.
There seems to be an assumption in ‘family’ sites that everyone gets along just fine and is happy to share. Given the high divorce rate, I suspect there’s a need for people segment their messaging even amongst family circles (which turn in to multiple smaller circles in divorce) than people suspect.
We don’t need yet ANOTHER social technology. And WTH does Ramamia mean? It ain’t in my dictionary…
Let’s use and evolve what we got – let’s not create a social media bubble, please!
Geni should be making their site more social. Right now, I have little reason to visit the site (I get email reminders from them). How often am I going to add new family members or check/updat pictures. Having a tool dedicated for day-to-day communication for families would be great – including event management and calendaring – which would be useful not only for reunions but for younger families that need to simply coordinate schedules like soccer games, school plays, school events, etc.
I hope this doesn’t mean immediate families. You can’t just remind people IN PERSON before they go to sleep that you’re going to Grandma’s tomorrow? They have to log in to get that info? Bizarro world.
I actually like this idea. My parents live in another state. By the time I actually call them, I’ve already forgotten most of what I’ve been up to over the week.
With barely any effort from me I can tell them what I’m doing now, (like I just got furloughed) and we can have a more meaningful phone conversation about it.
Couldn’t you just make a family profile that’s private and create new profiles for each member so it doesn’t get confused with friends or colleague updates?
I really like the idea of a Yammer-type client for families. As social media becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives (hello iPhones), and more importantly our children’s lives, it only makes sense for families to communicate online in some instances. Especially if you’re like me and have two daughters who are heading off to college!
does anyone in your family use twitter?
I tried (and failed) to get my co-workers to use Yammer, and suspect I would have even worse results with my family.
I do think, however, that Google Wave could be the solution (one day). Each “wave” could be subscribed to by the relevant people. E.g. baby photos of Jack, my 8 week old son, will be a ‘wave’ that I can keep adding photos to and people can comment on.
Likewise, for business, I could have a Technical Status Updates wave and a Sales Status Updates wave.
The bonus is that Wave integrates email as well, in the browser, with no need for me to get family members or co-workers to use a service outside of their existing daily workflow (provided Wave extends naturally from Gmail & Google Apps, which everyone uses)