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They say necessity is the mother of invention. Amiglia evolved out of a family photo site which became a focal point for all the Berrys’ family pictures and memories. The large family realized they needed a better way to share the newest photos, as well as to unravel the old photos of common ancestors. Amiglia is social networking at the family level.
I spoke with Paul Berry, who started the site with his father Tim. Tim is President of Palo Alto Software, if you have ever written a business plan you probably have used his products.
Amiglia is focused on family networks, tying the visual family tree with an online photo album. Spread the site to your nuclear and distant family, discover and archive old photos of common relatives and keep up to date with each other. The site includes a family calendar, birthday reminders, mp3 uploads for slideshows, favorite recipes, stories, family and trip/vacation maps and powerful photo tagging.
We just launched the first version of a kids game - currently for toddlers. Parents and relatives can record their voices and match them to photos of that person. Particularly good for keeping babies familiar with relatives they don’t see on a daily basis, it also has a mesmerizing effect on the little ones. We’ve taken the basics of computer gaming for children, for example they can hammer away at the keyboard for extra effects but without navigating away or causing problems. As the toddlers get older the game will evolve to teach them to read, match places they’ve been to to points on the map, etc. You can see more about the game here.
Amiglia is currently in beta. Pricing is currently $49.95 per year, with premium and Pro versions at $100 and $150. Competitors include MyFamily.
They were smart to pull content from other sites like Flickr into Amiglia, no need to replicate the photos all over the interweb. The site is a bit rough around the edges and you can tell this was hatched in Silicon Valley- CNET mention of their data management solutions on home page, geeks! Initial feedback has been positive. Expect new features and partnerships soon.
Update: Skype integration is in alpha. I recently worked with someone on a similar family-oriented site concept with embedded Skype functionality. Once it’s set up it makes it easy for grandma to read junior a bed time story.
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