

FamilyLeaf (YC W12) - Your Family's Private Social Network - wesleyzhao
http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/bank-of-america/archive/2012/11/your-familys-private-social-network/264901

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nestlequ1k
To Wes: Just curious, how much traffic / conversions does an article like this
usually generate from a non-tech press outlet like the Atlantic?

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rdl
I'm not really in the target audience for the product at all, but it looks
great.

What really interests me is that amazing ad unit -- it's a "sponsored article
from Bank of America". I actually read it, unlike a banner ad, and while if I
were at all in the market for a family social network, I'd now be interested
in FamilyLeaf, it ALSO made me somewhat more positive toward Bank of America.

This seems a whole lot more effective than running banner ads.

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webwanderings
Looks all nice and such but the family member role at the time of the sign up,
seems limiting. What if your family is small based on the available
relationship in the dropdown? You wouldn't bother creating a new social
network just for one or two people. If the "family incharge" (as per your FAQ)
can possibly extend the family he/she creates later on, than I think it should
be identified first.

I think ultimately, the emphasis on the private nature of all of these social
networks has one single limitation issue: the building of network requires few
people taking initiative of building the network (which you have identified as
"family administrator"). Without such people taking initiative, these networks
don't really go anywhere. And we know that not everyone takes those
initiatives, especially when the site is brand new, unknown and/or not so
popular.

Just some thoughts.

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liuhenry
Thanks for the feedback! You're absolutely right about the family role
dropdown. We put it there as a temporary fix while we built a more
comprehensive "family tree" feature, and we'll be replacing it shortly so you
can more accurately represent the relationships within your family.

Per your second point, we're extremely grateful to our early adopters who've
taken the initiative to try us out with their family. We're constantly working
to improve the product from feedback like yours, and trying to lower the
barrier so those network builders do take the initiative. Would love to chat
if you have any suggestions or concerns about the product!

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slashedzero
The article mentions the competition for FamilyLeaf, but does not give any
inkling of a clue as to how they'll overcome the competition and really the
bigger competition from Facebook. Simply saying their confident it will fill
the niche doesn't give me any reason to choose it over the myriad of other
services lifted.

I'm also not really in the target demographic, but if someone asked me why
they should choose to use this service instead of Facebook, I'd be hard
pressed to give them a reason.

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levlandau
The article does implicitly address why this is an alternative to Facebook.
"We feel that your work life and your social life have been well-addressed
online, but no service has truly helped you stay in touch with your family".

Facebook is not for intimate conversation with your family. Path is mobile-
first and isn't as big of a thing (yet). Google+ allows you define circles but
is rather complicated. As with other spaces where network effects are
important, only the biggest will survive and the biggest currently
(Path/Google+/others) do not address the family niche conclusively (product
wise/platorm wise).

The real question is whether the family niche itself is an important enough
one to a large enough base of people. It makes more sense to assume that this
is the case...than not right? The upside here is pretty huge if there's
something to it.

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zrail
I wonder if there would be a market out there for some kind of host-your-own
system like this. Run an app on your family's central machine and register
YourFamily.examplehostedapp.com. The app does the work of keeping that domain
name pointed at your machine and keeping a upnp tunnel open.

One interesting question is backups. Encrypted snapshots to S3, maybe?

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pclark
who self-hosts anything in 2012?

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eric-hu
Some people who use Tor do

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melkisch
Have you ever heard about <http://www.trustedfamily.net/> I think they are
doing a great job offering a comparable service to rich european families.

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juanbyrge
Good luck with the launch ! This is a beautiful looking site.

Many many many of these types of sites have launched and died. Dont let that
deter you ! This Githubs first idea. One of these will work !

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patrickg
I don't understand: how is this more secure? Maybe I don't understand the
meaning of the word 'secure' in this context.

Photos and everything is still stored on a remote uncontrolled server.

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jka
Indeed, I'd see it the same way - for individuals (and indeed families) it
certainly is not really more secure - if anything, less so due to the
likelihood and encouragement for families to put more intimate/sensitive and
personal details into the environment.

This and things like Pair, the social network for couples, I would suspect are
shooting for high 'value' - where value is correlated with selling that
information to third parties (advertisers, at best; but other parties are
possible customers too).

edit - after reading their privacy policy, they do currently seem to have a
good standing; even so I'd generally be cautious

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patrickg
I had expected from the title "Your Family's Private Social Network" a
software to be installed on a private server, well knowing that this is only
something for experienced users.

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scottmcleod
Bau5

