Geni.com
Encyclopedia
Geni is a genealogy
and social networking
website. Launched on January 16, 2007, the Web 2.0
company aims to create a family tree of the world. While family profiles are private, Geni’s mission is to create a shared family tree of common ancestors. By combining research into a single tree that users work on together, users can focus on verifying information and on new avenues of research, rather than spending time duplicating research that others have already done. Over 98.6 million profiles were created on Geni by over 5.8 million users as of December 2010. Geni is also the parent company of enterprise messaging service Yammer
.
, a private venture capital
firm, invested "more than $1 million”.
Charles River Ventures
, a private venture capital firm, has also invested US$
10 million.
At the website users enter names and email
addresses of their parents, siblings, and other relatives, as well as profiles with various fields of biographical information about themselves and their relatives. From there users may graphically manipulate sections of their connections network to create a complete personal family tree
.
The service uses the contact information to invite additional members to join, and builds a comprehensive social network
database from the information collectively entered by members. For now users may only see information belonging to themselves and to people in their immediate network who have given them permission.
New features and enhancements get added to Geni regularly (approximately every 1-2 month).
format, this facility has been disabled. Geni found it was duplicating thousands of existing profiles, without adding much (or any) new information. They plan to re-enable GEDCOM imports once they rewrite the importer to take the close family profiles and screen out the rest.
The rate at which these extended trees grow tends to increase as the trees become larger. Some extended trees or "forests" have snowballed. One in particular has become significantly larger than any other. As of January 27, 2009 it contained 7.7 million profiles and is growing at the rate of approximately 2 million profiles per month. On July 11 it surpassed 20 million profiles and on August 16 it crossed 23 million profiles. At the end of February 2010 it had passed 35 million profiles and as of December 2010 it was just short of 50 million. It is colloquially referred to by many Geni genealogists monitoring this phenomenon as "The Big Tree" or the "World Family Tree".
, Babe Ruth
, Thomas Edison
, and Benjamin Franklin
.
12.95 per month (payable upfront as an annual payment of US$
99.95), paid by credit card
. Premium members are known as Geni Pros and have the Geni Pro Badge displayed in their profile, have a priority support service, and are able to export their forest (that is, their tree and also trees connected to it) as GEDCOM file (up to a limit of 100,000 individuals).
The company also plans to make money by targeting advertising to users based on the demographic information they provide.
Geni is to some extent modeled after social networking site LinkedIn
, a popular site for business-related social networking.
Genealogy
Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
and social networking
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
website. Launched on January 16, 2007, the Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
company aims to create a family tree of the world. While family profiles are private, Geni’s mission is to create a shared family tree of common ancestors. By combining research into a single tree that users work on together, users can focus on verifying information and on new avenues of research, rather than spending time duplicating research that others have already done. Over 98.6 million profiles were created on Geni by over 5.8 million users as of December 2010. Geni is also the parent company of enterprise messaging service Yammer
Yammer
Yammer is an enterprise social network service that was launched in September 2008. Unlike Twitter, which is used for broadcasting messages to the public, Yammer is used for private communication within organizations or between organizational members and pre-designated groups, making it an example...
.
Investors
The Founders FundThe Founders Fund
Founders Fund is a San Francisco based venture capital firm which invests at all stages in companies with revolutionary technologies. The firm’s six partners, Peter Thiel, Sean Parker, Ken Howery, Luke Nosek, Bruce Gibney, and Brian Singerman have been founders of or early investors in numerous...
, a private venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
firm, invested "more than $1 million”.
Charles River Ventures
Charles River Ventures
Charles River Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in technology and new media companies.The firm, which is based in Waltham, Massachusetts and Menlo Park, California, was founded in 1970 to commercialise research that came out of MIT...
, a private venture capital firm, has also invested US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
10 million.
Features
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
addresses of their parents, siblings, and other relatives, as well as profiles with various fields of biographical information about themselves and their relatives. From there users may graphically manipulate sections of their connections network to create a complete personal family tree
Family tree
A family tree, or pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. The more detailed family trees used in medicine, genealogy, and social work are known as genograms.-Family tree representations:...
.
The service uses the contact information to invite additional members to join, and builds a comprehensive social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
database from the information collectively entered by members. For now users may only see information belonging to themselves and to people in their immediate network who have given them permission.
New features and enhancements get added to Geni regularly (approximately every 1-2 month).
Family Tree Awards
Members of each family are ranked by the number of contributions they make to the family tree and are given awards within the family tree itself. Contributions categories include Number of Profiles Added, Number of Invitations Made, Photos Uploaded, Videos Uploaded etc. The top 13 people in each category receive awards. This feature urges users to generate more contact and to compete with each other.Discussion forum
Each family tree features a family discussion forum where messages can be posted and responses made. It can be used as such a digest for family news. There are also public discussions as well as project discussions.Notifications
Each person who has linked to their family tree via their email address can elect to be notified about various activities on the tree, such as when new people are added, if any pictures are uploaded, when someone posts a message on the discussion forum, or someone has a birthday etc. Notification frequency options include none, instant, daily and weekly.GEDCOM
While Geni has the ability to allow users to import their family history using the GEDCOMGEDCOM
GEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a proprietary and open de facto specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software...
format, this facility has been disabled. Geni found it was duplicating thousands of existing profiles, without adding much (or any) new information. They plan to re-enable GEDCOM imports once they rewrite the importer to take the close family profiles and screen out the rest.
Merging Trees / The Big Tree
Around August 2008, Geni facilitated the ability to merge family trees where they overlapped via common ancestors or living relatives. Individual privacy is maintained by settings that allow tree members beyond a selectable distance of relationship to only see limited information about a person such as their name and relationship to them.The rate at which these extended trees grow tends to increase as the trees become larger. Some extended trees or "forests" have snowballed. One in particular has become significantly larger than any other. As of January 27, 2009 it contained 7.7 million profiles and is growing at the rate of approximately 2 million profiles per month. On July 11 it surpassed 20 million profiles and on August 16 it crossed 23 million profiles. At the end of February 2010 it had passed 35 million profiles and as of December 2010 it was just short of 50 million. It is colloquially referred to by many Geni genealogists monitoring this phenomenon as "The Big Tree" or the "World Family Tree".
Popular Profiles
Geni also features a section in which one can view the top profiles on the website. The top profiles include U.S. presidents, athletes, and other famous people such as inventors or historians. Examples: George WashingtonGeorge Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
, Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
, Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
, and Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
.
Revenue model
Geni offers a premium service, known as the Geni Pro Account, for US$United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
12.95 per month (payable upfront as an annual payment of US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
99.95), paid by credit card
Credit card
A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
. Premium members are known as Geni Pros and have the Geni Pro Badge displayed in their profile, have a priority support service, and are able to export their forest (that is, their tree and also trees connected to it) as GEDCOM file (up to a limit of 100,000 individuals).
The company also plans to make money by targeting advertising to users based on the demographic information they provide.
Business model
After Geni's launch, several (mostly international) companies have appeared trying to copy its product and business model. For example, the German website Verwandt.de makes unauthorized usage of the Geni Flash application, and copies the family networking aspect of Geni in its entirety.Geni is to some extent modeled after social networking site LinkedIn
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...
, a popular site for business-related social networking.