If any of you are constant readers of my writing then you know I love anything I can get for free online. Well for the past 3 years my family has been a part of a website called www.Myfamily.com, which is a website for you to stay in contact with your family. I of course wasn’t interested at first because I was a college student who had other things to do. Well now I am married and expecting a child so this I have realized the value of Myfamily.com. A totally free website that has no real limits to the amount of photos or information you post on Myfamily.com!
Myfamily.com seriously has it all, from uploading photos, to posting comments, and even videos. It’s so simple to use even my grandma can do it. I have never had any limits or restrictions put on me by Myfamily.com, no matter how many photos I upload it never complains. You can register as many members as you want and they all can login to the website and customize their part of it. Any member has the right to access all parts of the site and can upload pics, videos, and anything else Myfamily.com allows you to do. Each family can create their own family section in the photo album which makes it nice if you want to look at each family’s pics individually.
Good aspects of Myfamily.com have to start with the ease of use. Such an easy interface, very straight forward and all the upload windows have great tips on them for the non-computer savvy people. Everything is very well laid out for the users, easy to get to, and easy to access. The home page after you login is pretty nice, gives you short briefing of the calendar of events and birthdays. There is a section that lists all the newest comments posted by members, with links to them for easy reading. There is a short on the news section that you can view recent news posted by your family members, again with a link for easy access. You also get a short brief of the newest video clips that have been uploaded, and the newest recipes. Basically you can get to almost all new content via this home page, quickly and easily, with just a few clicks.
Other than a good home page with an easy interface, Myfamily.com offers a place to upload up to a gig of photos (roughly 10,000) depending on size. You can add all sorts of information to your pictures, such as date, place taken, and personalize each and every one of them. Myfamily.com also offers a tool (upload express) for mass uploading at one time, makes entering multiple photos simple and fast. They also offer ways to look at all the recent photos, or just photos from a certain family; you just have to follow their photo album link. You can also search for a specific photo, using their search bar. The website also allows you to view the pictures in a slide show format which is pretty nice.
In the calendar section you can post all sorts of events that are coming up so people can see what is going on with you and your family. Also it automatically posts everyone that is registered to Myfamily.com, and posts their birthdays. I find this very hand; otherwise I wouldn’t know when anyone in my family was having a birthday. Myfamily.com also offers a place where you can make polls for your family to take; I have used this feature just for fun polling questions about who was the most fun at the family reunion. It’s just a fun little addition to the website.
One of my favorite features is the “File Cabinet” feature which allows you to upload video files and any other file you would like to share with your family. The interface allows you to upload more than one file at a time which is nice, I hate to have to point, click, wait and then repeat it over and over again. This is a great way to share video files of your family or to share any other type of file you might want to send to them.
My aunt loves the section called “Recipes” she seems to always be asking for our family recipes. In the recipes section you can add recipes for your family to view and use, and they can also comment on how wonderful they are, or in my case how I left out an ingredient and the cake was horrible.
Myfamily.com also offers a section where you can add your family tree, you have to build it and keep it up to date. A cool tool if you have the knowledge you can make a pretty in depth family tree and everyone can trace their heritage. Anyone who is registered has the ability to create a family tree, just like all other aspects to the site, if you are registered you can do pretty much anything, and there aren’t many limits to space on Myfamily.com.
Myfamily.com also has a section for addresses of your loved ones, and this is a handy tool. When I sent invitation to my wedding this is where I came to find addresses, since everyone in my family visits the site almost daily I knew the addresses would be current. My family uses Myfamily.com so much; I can’t believe it is offered for free. Another cool tool that Myfamily.com has is a chat program where you can schedule a chat session with your family members and they can join and you can all catch up with each other. The chat section has two functions one is the “who’s online”, which tells you who is logged into Myfamily.com at any given time. The second part is the group chat which I already described. With the “who’s online” tool you can send an instant message to any member currently logged in. Pretty awesome tool most sites that have something like this charge for membership.
One other great thing about Myfamily.com that is surprising is that they don’t plaster advertisements all over your family site. Most free websites throw advertisements all over the place and make Myfamily.com look tacky. This isn’t the case with Myfamily.com, I mean there are a few advertisements where they offer printing of your photos, but it’s not in your face or real glaring. I think the little advertising they do on your site is done tastefully.
Well there is just to much good stuff about Myfamily.com for me to list it all but you have a good overview of Myfamily.com. Go create a family website today and keep in touch with all of your family, its easy to get them registered all you need to do is send them a registration link in their email and in no time they will be a member. There is so much you can do with Myfamily.com; it truly is a great way to stay in close contact with family. My family is located all over the country and this seems to be an easy way to keep them updated with what is going on in our part of the world.
You couldn’t ask for more from a free website, I have seen many other sites that want to charge for half of what Myfamily.com offers. Take advantage of Myfamily.com create an account, you won’t be disappointed.
