I know they are now marketing towards families but I started my site in November 2007 and use it for keeping in contact with all my genealogy friends.

I like the flexibility of being able to allow the big worldwide web to view certain areas of my site e.g. my blog, which attracts new researchers, but at the same time keeping the pictures private. You have to become a member to view all the details.

I just had a quick look at Geni but it looked quite rigid in its structure, Sampa is much more flexible.

Great site and great people to work with! They actually answer your queries.

Carry on the good work Sampa!

I feel with you. My family is currently spread over three or four continents (depending on the time of the year) and my friends on five. (At least I can’t think of anyone important to me who is in South America right now.) Having a family reunion is not as simple as it sounds. Social technology for families is what keeps us in touch (phone, IM, SMS, personal blogs, etc.).

With the private URL, Grandpa and Grandma don’t have to remember their username and password. Not do they have to constantly check the site for updates, because every time you update it, Sampa sends them an email.

While I agree that a low entrance barrier can be important, email as notification is not the what I am looking for. Some of my family and friends want to see many pictures, others only check when they have time, depending how close we are. If a system sends an email every time there is something new, it actually defeats the purpose of having one system for all my extended family and friends. What I need is some sort of a “pull” oriented system, which has more light weight notifications.

Secondly for me it is much more important that the system is easy to use to upload pictures than the barrier of adoption. If the system is easy to use my parents and other family members can also upload their pictures. Half of my family own digital cameras, but the barrier of usability is too high, I will never see these pictures. I don’t want to say that the described service is too difficult to use. I have not tried it out. I am just pointing out that this might be an important criteria, which is missing in the article.

I personally use Wuala (full disclosure: the founder is a good friend of mine). Of course my parents would never install an application themselves. But since I basically do most of their computer support anyway, I just installed the app myself and checked the “remember password” box. (This should also work in case of password protected blog entries as you propose them.) That way I can circumvent the barrier of adoption and straight get to the question of usability. To upload pictures in Wuala they just need to drag them in to the app window from iPhoto - a process which I can easily explain to my parents and other family members.

But please don’t get me wrong. I don’t want this to end up in a “this system is better than that system” discussion. I think each and everyone of us has certain specific criteria and therefore will make different choices. My point is rather another one. You point out clearly that you understand the motivation behind the site, as you have the problem it wants to solve. Since you give it this personal note, it would be interesting to know what you actually use yourself and if you consider switching to Sampa and why/why not. The two criteria I give above which are important to me, are a result of long trial and error with various solutions (email attachments, hand coded web gallery, Google gallery, family Wiki, etc.) and I am sure you have done the same. Therefore it would be interesting to see what criteria are important to you personally and why.

my friends and close family who live more than an hours drive away still desire to know what my family is up to. I call, email, and IM them all the time. However nothing replaces a picture or video. They want to watch my baby grow and develop and a picture helps that immensely.

We see these people from time to time but a blog and/or social network keeps them in the know during the in between visits.

The dilemma is: I want to share my family’s events with certain people, not the entire web public.

Unfortunately, I think Geni is much better at this stuff. It’s becoming the facebook for families; mainly through its addictive family tree app.