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Wesley Zhao and Ajay Mehta believe their site FamilyLeaf will fill the last big frontier in social networking--a place just for families.

FamilyLeaf founders Ajay Mehta, Henry Liu, Wesley Zhao.

The problem with Facebook is that everyone is on it--even your mother. The social network brings worlds together that should never collide, like the drunken pictures from that frat party and your more buttoned-up visits to Grandma's nursing home. The founders of FamilyLeaf know this feeling well, and hope to solve this problem with their new social network specially tailored for families--so you can continue to be the sweetheart your parents believe that you are. Wesley Zhao, along with his childhood friend, Ajay Mehta, both 20, are banking on the fact that FamilyLeaf will fill what the founders have identified as the last big need in social networking.

"When you ask someone what the most important things are in life, they usually say family, friends, and work," says Zhao. "LinkedIn has created this huge company that helps people from work connect and Facebook has done that with friends, but theres this huge vacuum in this final frontier of connecting families on social networks."

In 2011, Zhao and Mehta, took leave from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and New York University, respectively, to move to San Francisco to pursue their rather vague start-up dream to build a social network. Their first big break came last year, when they secured $167,000 from Y-Combinator and the Start Fund to build a social network for athletes called Roster, which never launched. Through Y-Combinator, the pair met Henry Liu, 18, who had just taken leave from the University of Rochester. After deciding the potential customer base for Roster was too small, they joined with Liu and switched focus--and seed capital--to building a digital network for families.

The three founders, all of whom had built websites for previous projects, worked together to program FamilyLeaf, which launched in March of 2012.

In addition to offering newsfeeds and messaging features, the service allows users to build online photo albums and the team is considering adding a family history function. "Families have been doing this for a very long time," says Mehta. "And we want to bring modern tools into this traditional process."

FamilyLeaf will rely on a revenue model that excludes the sort of targeted advertising that often gets Facebook in hot water. The founders hope to achieve this by offering paid services such as printing photo albums that families have made on the website. Although still in beta, the site is open to the public and has already amassed over ten thousand users.

"FamilyLeaf addresses a real need in the market," says Kartik Hosanagar, a professor at Wharton and an investor in the start-up. "I use FamilyLeaf and love how easy it is to share pictures, videos, and posts with my family. The product has a young feel to it but it is simple enough that a not-so-web-savvy grandma can figure out how to use it."

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Meet FamilyLeaf, a Social Network for Families

An adult women will spend 8 months longer than a man on social networking sites during her lifetime, according to a new study by inbound marketing agency, Browser Media.

(PRWEB UK) 20 March 2013

The study also revealed that people are prepared to give up some surprising real life activities such as socialising/going out (14%), sleep (10%) and even sex (8%) in order to spend time on social networks. Other commonly sacrificed activities include watching television & films, chatting on the phone, reading, and cooking.

Joe Friedlein, managing director, Browser Media said: Smart phones now mean that social networking is both a round the clock and on-the-go activity, with no need to stop until your device runs out of battery. Therefore it comes as no surprise that social networking addiction has become a new twenty first century ailment, especially when individuals are giving up necessities such as sleeping and cooking.

Women forfeit chores

The research also confirmed the stereotype that the fairer sex is also the most sociable sex: 73% of women say they use social networking sites, whereas the figure was much lower (62%) for men. In terms of the activities they would forfeit, almost twice as many women as men are prepared to ignore the household chores in order to read status updates or tweets. However, it wasn't clear whether men are less prepared to sacrifice chores or they simply didn't think about chores in the first place.

Other findings:

18-25 year olds are the most prevalent adult users of social networking sites. Ninety-two per cent of this age group use social networking sites and if these current usage levels continue, they would lose over three and a half years of their life to social networking sites.

Social networking use declines with age, with the exception of the 65+ age group where a resurgence in usage is evident. The lowest use is in the 55-64 age bracket at just 19 minutes per day vs. 29 minutes for the over 65s.

Regionality has a role to play in social networking, with people in Sheffield spending twice as long (72 minutes per day) as people in Edinburgh (35 minutes). Glasgow (66), Oxford (66) and Newcastle (65) all top the list of the heaviest users per day, whilst Brighton (42), Milton Keynes (40) and Liverpool (39) are all at the lower end of the scale.

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Women sacrifice sex and chores to clock up 963 days on social networks over their lifetime

Social networking site Twitter turns seven years-old today. The site has grown from humble beginnings in 2006 to having 200million users around the world and producing 400million tweets a day.

For those unfamiliar with a 'hashtag' or how many characters are allowed in each tweet, read on for the essential facts of the popular website...

There are 200million Twitter users (Twitterers - not Tweeters) worldwide.

About 10million of these users are from the UK.

A tweet can be no more than 140 characters long.

Tweet (verb) - to tweet, tweeting, tweeted. To tweet is the act of publishing a message - a Tweet - on Twitter.

An incredible 400million Tweets are sent every day.

Retweet (RT) can be used two ways. Retweet (noun) is a Tweet by another user which has been shared to you by someone you follow. Retweet (verb) - to retweet, retweeting, retweeted - a tweet that is shared with others.

Around 80% of UK users are use their mobile to Tweet compared to 60% globally.

The first tweet was posted on March 21, 2006 by creator Jack Dorsey.

Originally posted here:
Twitter turns seven: Your guide to the social networking site

Yourwellness Magazine asked their readers if social networks were harming real life relationships

London, UK (PRWEB UK) 18 March 2013

Yourwellness Magazine recently posed this very question to its readers; Are Social Networks Harming Real Life Relationships?

Responses were varied, as debates usually are, but perhaps unsurprisingly, parents were more worried about their childrens use of time of the networking sites. The children themselves, however, seemed to be less concerned.

So is this a generational gap? Reader Dawn feels as though her two teenage children are permanently connected to either their phones or laptops. Their attention spans are now so short that we can only talk to them for a couple of minutes before they start reaching for their phones to check for updates. Dawn worries that they spend so much time alone whilst on social network sites, that they are missing out on real life.

Duncan, however, feels that social networking enhances, rather than harms his friendships and relationships. The thing that I love is that theyve made communication and socialising really simple. I can easily keep in touch with people I rarely see in real life even those living on the other side of the world, who I might otherwise lose touch with. He said that get-togethers are made simple with mass invites to friend lists and the sense of community is apparent.

Visit the Yourwellness website to register your vote!

Yourwellness Magazine is unique in that it covers all aspects of wellbeing, from health and relationships, through fitness and family, to work and finances. Whats more, it also explores all the options available from ancient to modern to scientific to holistic with completely impartial information

To find out more read the latest magazine online at http://latestissue.yourwellness.com

Alternatively visit the gateway to living well at http://www.yourwellness.com

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Yourwellness Magazine debates the use of Social Networking

It was not long ago that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and many other such social networking platforms were a complete no no' in many organizations. They were either banned, or not accessible on office networks. In some cases, a separate room or time was created for employees to check their Facebook accounts. That's all. By and large logging on to such sites was seen as detrimental to office work and employee productivity. There were even instances in many organizations where the IT administrators were being told to look out for employees who were on these sites, wasting time, and possibly compromising with confidential data and information. Not any more.

The Business Case

At a recent conference on social networking, Connect 2013, organized by IBM, speaker after speaker, ranging from Gerd Friedrich, the business focused CIO of $71 bn Bosche Group, to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, founder of Hitrecord, where he has got together creative artists to produce videos, music, lyrics, literature, photography, screenwriting, graphic art etc, spoke about the way social networking is being deployed, and their is unbelievable gains for the organization as well as its people. For instance, Hitrecord's now famous video "The Man with a Turnip for a Head" was actually produced with the collaboration of 295 artists from across the globe, most of whom never even met each other. "Talent is all around you. Social networking allows you to find and build a winning team", said Gordon. The interesting fact is that Hitrecord has only 8 employees but can get hundreds of people-enthusiasts and professionals-to collaborate on revenue driven time bound projects.

Friedrich has strong reasons for becoming a votary of social media in business. "I wanted to empower the whole organization to behave like entrepreneurs, and the first step was to get the employees to use it. And then it took just 4 months to evaluate the technologies, and only 6 months to implement it for 60,000 people, which was fast," he says. Bosch is using social media for much effective community management of partners, and change management among its employees. Ross Grossman, VP of human resource of $466 mn Regeneron Pharma based in New York, informs that his company is aggressively deploying social media and it has already in a short span of time resulted in hiring and motivating the best people in the industry. All this sounds quite logical considering the fact that today relationships are increasingly being made and built online. Jeff Bowman, global head of e-business for Caterpillar, the $66 bn giant that is onto designing, manufacturing, and selling heavy machinery believes that "accelerating customer growth and loyalty at every touch-point is critical, and key to social media is a great tool for that." Based on this social media drive which also includes registering all past and present owners of Caterpillar machines, the company is soon going to launch an e-commerce site for selling their machine parts. Another revenue stream!

Beyond Corporates

Smaller set-ups are however much active. And Hitrecord's Gordon is not the only example of success. For instance Blue Cross Blue Shield, a health insurance company in Massachusetts, has deployed social media for internal processes as well as to reach out to its customer. According to Bill Fandich, its CIO, "using social media in our IT infrastructure gives us a 360 degree view of all our members which gives us a very comprehensive profile of our customer, and it is constantly updated. What excites Fandich even more is that with social, they can give their members a very personalized touch, and she feels there is somebody with them.

Apparently, IBM has over 9,000 customers of 5 person company' and their number is rapidly growing. "It is a good deal for small businesses. They do not have to buy any hardware or software, but just a service. And they are on," explained Carter. The company has already put in place 1,200 channel partners who are out in the market convincing business leaders on the power of social, as it is has now been jargonized.

If you thought social media is only for IT savvy companies, think again. Dubuque, a small town along the Mississippi river in Iowa, US with a population of about 58,000 people is turning the place around using social to engage with its citizens. Says Mike Van Milligan, city manager, "We are using social media with our people to save money, conserve resources, and support local economy and environment." Ever since the city CIO started using social media to connect with the locals, water usage has gone down by 7%, there is an 800% increase in timely water leak detections, and monthly electricity bills have reduced by 4-7%. Milligan says that "besides enhancing quality of life of our citizens, they also see what efforts their government is making to make life better. And more than that a smart city means smart citizens." Dubuque has recently won the award Best Small City in the US' to raise a family.

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The Business of Social Media