Los Angeles, Calif. (PRWEB) July 2, 2007
Geni (http://www.geni.com), the social network that connects users by their genealogy, today announced that it has acquired over 5 million profiles since launching in mid-January just 5 months ago.
"I believe we are reaching a tipping point where each incremental user is more willing to contribute data about his family relationships because so many other people have done so," said David Sacks, CEO of Geni.com. "Our goal is to unite the world in a single family tree, and then help those family members learn about and stay in touch with each other," Sacks said.
On Geni.com, families work together to build their family trees and create profiles for the people in those trees. The site is unique among social networks in that users can create profiles for each other. This allows relatives to create profiles for deceased ancestors and parents to create and maintain profiles for their children.
Because of the millions of profiles that users have contributed to Geni, the site is becoming a valuable genealogical reference tool. Thanks to Geni's new search feature, users can search for a relative among millions of profiles in other family trees. If there is a match, the user can then message the person who added that potential common ancestor.
Thanks to Geni, many users have already connected with long-lost relatives and added new branches to their family tree.
Geni fan Kurt Walter, a Swiss citizen currently living in Vietnam, said "through you and your team I am back in touch with relatives that I didn't have contact with for 20 years."
As family trees grow and extend all over the world, Geni has launched a number of new features to enable families to stay in touch. These include messaging, photo sharing, birthday reminders and a family calendar. Geni's map feature allows users to see where there family is located across the globe.
"Since we started using Geni.com my family has grown considerably. I invited one of my cousins from Italy and all of the sudden family started appearing from everywhere in the world. Family I didn't even know I had sends me messages wanting me to come and visit them so we can get to know each other," said Victor Bello of Sherman Oaks, California. "Through Geni I've found much of my family's history through shared photos; we have uncovered a treasure with Geni.com and since then our family is closer. It doesn't really matter where you are in the world. Another perk with Geni's birthday reminders is that I won't miss another birthday EVER AGAIN!" said Bello.
Geni was a winner of the 2007 Webware 100 Awards, which named it one of the top 100 sites on the internet and one of the top 10 reference sites. It is by far the youngest site to receive this honor.
About Geni.com
Geni.com is a privately held company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Geni was founded in 2006 by former executives and early employees of PayPal, Yahoo! Groups, Ebay and Tribe. It is backed by venture capital firms Founders Fund and Charles River Ventures. For more information visit the company's web site at http://www.geni.com.
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