WebBiographies
Encyclopedia
WebBiographies is a social network service
with an emphasis on genealogy
, biography
and memoir
writing, family tree
s, and online privacy
.
It was founded in late April, 2006 by Scott Purcell
, founder of Epoch Networks
and a former Board member of the Commercial Internet eXchange
.
In an interview for MIT
Technology Review
, Scott stated that WebBiographies was founded with a "grown-up" audience in mind:
WebBiographies is also working on GEDCOM
compliance for their online family tree, and users who have resources using this file standard will be able to upload that information to their family tree.
They also have links to other genealogical resources available elsewhere on the internet
.
features such as the ability to connect one's web biography with friends and family and "comment" on journal entries.
Online privacy protection features are also offered to users of the service. Users may choose to have their blogs, scrapbooks, biographies, or family histories displayed publicly or password-protected and locked from view by all except those whom the user chooses. There are three levels of password protection options.
There are also weblogging features and one's site is organized like a book, with customizable "Chapters". In addition, every biography page is assigned a unique URL
.
Digital photos, digital video
, and .mp3s may be shared and/or stored along with users' biography pages. Users can "connect" to one another's biographies, to stay abreast of new journals and photos as they are posted.
WebBiographies also supports foreign language formats and has many members from Eastern Europe
and Asia
.
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
with an emphasis on genealogy
Genealogy
Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
, biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
and memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
writing, family tree
Family tree
A family tree, or pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. The more detailed family trees used in medicine, genealogy, and social work are known as genograms.-Family tree representations:...
s, and online privacy
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
.
It was founded in late April, 2006 by Scott Purcell
Scott Purcell
Scott Purcell was the founder of Epoch Networks, which was the fourth commercial internet backbone ever, raised in excess of $100 million in venture capital and was at one time was the largest privately-held internet service provider in the United States. He also served as a Board Member of the...
, founder of Epoch Networks
Epoch Networks
Epoch Networks was, at one time, the largest privately held first tier internet service provider ISP founded by Scott Purcell in 1994. It was the fourth commercial internet backbone in the United States...
and a former Board member of the Commercial Internet eXchange
Commercial Internet eXchange
The Commercial Internet eXchange was an early interexchange point that allowed the free exchange of TCP/IP traffic, including commercial traffic, between ISPs. It was an important initial effort toward creating the commercial Internet that we know today.- Goal :The goal of the CIX was to be an...
.
In an interview for MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
Technology Review
Technology Review
Technology Review is a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as "The Technology Review", and was re-launched without the "The" in its name on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R. Bruce Journey...
, Scott stated that WebBiographies was founded with a "grown-up" audience in mind:
"Like a lot of people, growing up I sat around the kitchen table hearing stories about great aunts and great-great-grandfathers, and very little of it is written down... A couple of years ago I thought, let's write it down on the Internet. But all the tools out there were genealogy stuff, for making family trees.
My partner and I were playing around on MySpace and were very impressed by what they were doing. But MySpace is used mainly by young people and to be honest, it's a bit of a chaotic mess. We said, "There should be a MySpace for grownups. Let's do it.'"
Genealogy features
The family tree utility can continue ad infinitum. For instance, if you've traced your family lineage to the Fifteenth century, WebBiographies' family tree utility can accommodate it. Each family member or ancestor added to the family tree is instantly assigned a free account, so that users can upload pictures and stories about him or her without sacrificing the user's own storage space.WebBiographies is also working on GEDCOM
GEDCOM
GEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a proprietary and open de facto specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software...
compliance for their online family tree, and users who have resources using this file standard will be able to upload that information to their family tree.
They also have links to other genealogical resources available elsewhere on the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
Social networking features
WebBiographies' genealogy and biography/memoir utilities are combined with Web 2.0Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
features such as the ability to connect one's web biography with friends and family and "comment" on journal entries.
Online privacy protection features are also offered to users of the service. Users may choose to have their blogs, scrapbooks, biographies, or family histories displayed publicly or password-protected and locked from view by all except those whom the user chooses. There are three levels of password protection options.
There are also weblogging features and one's site is organized like a book, with customizable "Chapters". In addition, every biography page is assigned a unique URL
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
.
Digital photos, digital video
Digital video
Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article.- History :...
, and .mp3s may be shared and/or stored along with users' biography pages. Users can "connect" to one another's biographies, to stay abreast of new journals and photos as they are posted.
WebBiographies also supports foreign language formats and has many members from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
.