Social networking sites like Facebook have made it a lot easier for me to stay in touch with my relatives. Even my Dad is a Facebook friend! Of course, social networking sites have some limitations-they tend to scare off older relatives and aren’t really appropriate for very young children to use without supervision. Plus, certain information, like addresses and phone numbers, is best not put out in public.
Family Connections allows you to make your own, secure website specifically for your family. Family Connections websites are not public-they are password-protected, and the site administrator controls who is and is not allowed to get an account.
This gives you and your family some privacy to share pictures and documents that you might not want to put in the public eye. Family members can also update their mailing addresses and phone numbers-a brilliant way to keep track of where birthday cards and Christmas presents need to go. There’s also a place where you can post family recipes, a message board, a calender and a place to post family news. You can also set up polls so your family can vote on vacations, holidays, etc.
You have the the choice of either hosting the website yourself or paying for a hosted account. “Tiny” hosted accounts are free, but don’t provide a lot of storage space. Paid accounts range from $2.00 to $9.00 per month.
The idea of making a secure website for your family is not new. For example, MyFamily.com offers a similar service. However, most family websites don’t offer you the option of self-hosting the site, as Family Connections does.
Once you get everything set up, the user interface is easy to navigate. It would be nice if there were themes to make it easily customizable, though. Also, what’s up with the “rank” on the member profiles? For a family website, ranking family members seems a little odd. Unless, of course, by “family” you mean “mafia”…then it would make sense.
***Okay, actually there are themes available in the user settings. Yours truly just didn’t see them. Sorry about that!
In all seriousness, I could see this service being quite useful for some families…I’m just not sure I could peel mine away from Facebook!
What do you think of Family Connections?
Our Rating of Family Connections
Categories:web
@calbucci How cute… a Sampa competitor: http://bit.ly/1a2qf4
http://familycms.com
Thanks for the review. I always love to hear what people think of my work.
I understand what you mean when you talk about the “Rank” feature, but perhaps the real issue is simply the name of it. It should really be called something like “Participation Score”, because that’s really what it is used for. It’s really just a fun way to see who spends the most time on the website and to encourage people to use the site more frequently.
As for themes, currently Family Connections comes with 3 main themes which can be changed in the User Settings (you probably just missed these). Themes are user specific so each user can use a different theme. You can also download other themes at our website.
Hi Ryan,
No problem…yes, I did miss the themes, so thanks for the heads up. I’ll modify the review accordingly.
Family Connections – Keeping It In The Family – UsefulTools.com http://bit.ly/1a2qf4
Family Connections – Keeping It In The Family – UsefulTools.com http://bit.ly/1a2qf4