We received a question today via our support email which we feel bears a little discussion here:

“What would be the competitive advantage of this website as compared to a family blog?”

Our Family Says service is, at its core, a family blog. A primary advantage Family Says has over other blog providers is privacy. With our service your site isn’t accessible to the unknown public scattered across the Internet. You control who sees your site and your personal family news.

Family Says is free from advertising banners and other intrusive commercial marketing. Your site is for your family and private discussion and shouldn’t be covered in distracting ads.

Simplicity is one of our founding principles. Our service is so easy to use that great-grandfathers can use it. Family Says is ideal for baby boomers whose families are now scattered across the country or even the world. We already have people using Family Says in Korea, Japan, and Portugal to keep in touch with their families and friends here in the States.

Thanks for your question. It was a great way for us to reflect on the things that are important to us that we hope are also important to you.

This week one of my friends sent me a link to her newly formed blog (unfortunately, not a Family Says site). I was navigating around and clicked on a link that said “next,” assuming it would take me to the next blog entry. Instead, to my surprise, I was taken to the next alphabetical person’s blog. I have no idea who they are. I quickly navigated back to my friend’s page. I was kind of taken aback at how easy it was to view some random stranger’s personal thoughts and feelings.

I think that privacy on the Internet is somewhat discounted when it comes to the extreme popularity of blogging. It’s so common for the younger generation to have “their space” that they share freely with friends and use to look up acquaintances. But for some of us in older generations, we aren’t quite ready to give up our privacy like that.

We like the idea of sharing thoughts and feelings in a way that used to be reserved for the daily diary but hesitate because that puts a lot of us out there. The feeling could be compared to running through the grocery store naked. Thankfully, Family Says stands ready to hand those seeking privacy a proverbial pair of shorts.

I’m glad that I have friends who share glimpses of their lives with me via blogs, but I am also glad that when I share glimpses of my life that I have complete control over who sees what I’m sharing. It helps to foster the intimate feeling that I hope people feel when I share daily struggles and triumphs.

I have to wonder how many others there are out there, like myself, who view themselves as private people. Listen up: Family Says is for you! Join in the fun! Here at Family Says, private means private.

We received a letter today from a happy customer, an 80-year-old patriarch of a family spread around the world. His comments made us happy, since he is reaping the benefits of simplicity, one of the components we’ve tried to focus on as we’ve developed these private family websites.

His letter, in part, read:

“Thanks so much for all you have done to make this such a viable commodity for all of us! It’s great!…especially when oldsters like us can navigate through the program.”

There seem to be many people out there who don’t consider themselves computer savvy and don’t have the resources to join the technological world, as much as they might want to. This isn’t too shocking, given the fact that the majority of all things Internet have developed in the last 15 years at a rapid rate.

One of the prime reasons we focused our efforts on making Family Says easy to use was due to the large number of our family members who were intimidated by the computer and online technology. They have all been surprised by how easy it’s been for them to participate in online family conversations and relieved that they have been able to join the “in” crowd.

We love hearing comments like this because it reinforces the point that Family Says can level the playing field for family members of all abilities and levels, as this great-grandpa (as well as all of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren) illustrate. I mean, we knew it for ourselves, but it’s nice to hear it from others, too!

In addition to adding pictures across the top of your site, you can also customize the color scheme. We’ve just added seven new color sets so that now you can choose from ten different options.

You can change colors by visiting the “Site Management” tab and selecting the colors that best fit your family:

If you have any suggestions on new color schemes, please let us know.

Enjoy!

We thought it would be nice to have some family pictures proudly displayed so visitors to our family site feel more at home. In addition to the ability to change the name of your site and pick a different color scheme, we’ve rolled out a new feature.

You can now add some pictures to the top of your site like you see here:

You can upload these pictures via the “Site Management” tab where you’ll see the “Top of the Page Pictures” section. These pictures will appear at the top of every page of your site.

Pick your favorite family pictures and customize your site today! Have fun.

How often do you see advertisements online that are really relevant to you? Not very often.

How often do you see ads that are flashing and annoying? Probably too often.

We feel that your Family Says website should be a sanctuary from the non-stop attack of banner ads and gimmicks you often find online. Even though families are a great demographic for targeted ads, we want you to have a distraction free family website.

You should be able to share your latest family news or pictures without seeing or being influenced by unrelated, irreverent, or annoying third-party advertisements.

So sit back and enjoy your ad-free zone.

Family Says is a private family website service that is extremely easy to use. Our family needed a website so we built our own! We’ve found it very useful and now our entire family uses it.

If you can send an email, you can create a website that your family can use to communicate and share your latest news, pictures, video, and more. It is just that easy.

While Family Says has been around for over a year now, we just recently set up our official blog. We’ll post our latest news, features, and thoughts here.

You can try Family Says for free for 30 days. Sign up today.