Amiglia the Blog

Amiglia in The NYTimes, International Herald Tribune

A great article on genealogy included a mention about Amiglia.com - note it, we aren't a free service any more (out of beta), but we definitely give you a feel for our service with the 30 days free you get.

SimplifierLab calls Amiglia "a smart, best-of-breed Web 2.0 genealogy application"

SimplifierLab posted the following today:
Amiglia is a smart, best-of-breed Web 2.0 genealogy application created by fellow ITP alums, Paul and Milena Berry. And, it's free during their beta period. "[Genealogy] is the third most popular pursuit...behind the twin vices of gambling and porn," according to Matty Sallin during his thesis presentation of Family Hedge, another genealogy application (Quicktime video + chat transcript).

Family linkages are the most basic social networks and, therefore, easily lend themselves to social applications that are meaningfully relevant to all of us. Amiglia focuses on the social aspects among family members rather than the taxonomy. For one, it has hooks into Flickr, making photo-sharing (a natural family activity) simple and accessible. It has a calendar so you can track birthdays and other important dates. You can even add photo journals of trips courtesy of an integrated Google mashup. It even has a fun family tree game for kids. Best of all, it's free during the beta period -- no software to purchase or install. It's all online and collaborative so the onus of maintaining the family tree can be shared across its members. Take it out for a spin: Family 2.0: Amiglia.com.

Geneology.About.com recommends to Amiglia your family tree

Kimberly Powel from Your Guide to Geneology at About.com posted an extensive review about our family software today:

Amiglia Your Family Tree

A new Web site shows a lot of promise as a way to build collaborative family trees. Built as a way to connect families - both across miles and generations - Amiglia is not a traditional family tree application, but more of a family tree photo album. It offers easy ways to share the latest family photos with each other, as well as to display and connect the oldest photos of common ancestors.

In concept Amiglia is basically just another online photo album like Flickr, but the family tree option is an interesting twist for genealogists. Albums can even be connected to each other, making it a great way to connect photos and profiles from living relatives for a family history book or upcoming reunion. When you upload new photos to your own album, they also get automatically uploaded to any related families albums. Instant sharing! You can also create a single family site, and provide your relatives with separate family passwords for upload rights, edit rights, etc.

Integration with Google Maps provides a neat way to share photos and reports from genealogical research trips, or even to display the migration of your ancestors in an interactive format. You can also produce a map that identifies all of your photos by location - fun for families spread out across multiple locations.

Amiglia still needs a bit of work. Family relationships such as step-parents, adoptees, etc. take extra work to identify (you have to establish divorcees as a married relationship, for example, and then edit from within their profiles) or can't be accurately portrayed at all. You also can't see an entire family tree at once, only browse through branch by branch. The site is still in development, however, with suggested changes and additions being implemented regularly.

Amiglia Basic is free, but limited to seven additional family members with contribution rights and 1GB of storage space for photos and videos. $49.95/year allows an unlimited number of people in your family album and 100GB of photo storage (about 20,000 high res photos) - it's a family membership, with the annual fee covering your entire core family. Amiglia Premium offers unlimited photo uploads and unlimited linked Amiglia sites for $99.95/year.

Best of all, the site is still in the final stages of beta - and is offering free lifetime memberships to anyone who signs up now. Amiglia is definitely worth checking out. Once you've played a bit, come back and tell us what you think!

Amiglia Recognzied by Genealogy Experts

We got our first recognition by Genealogy experts today with 3 blog posts which gave us a steady flow of traffic:

The Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and the North Suburban Library System/Illuminated Heritage blog republished Alan Mann's detailed review about Amiglia:

Amiglia - Social Photo storage for Genealogists

What is it?
A way of storing photos and presenting them in a variety of different ways. The most interesting way, however, is in a family tree. You define the relationship between the photos (mom, dad, child, spouse, etc.) and it presents a flash-based family tree of the photos. Perfect for genealogy!
It also allows you to geo-locate your photos and will produce maps through Google Maps that show push buttons for where your photos were taken overlaid on Google Maps (when you click on the pushpin button, you see the related photos).
It allows video uploads (limit 5mb), imports from flickr or PhotoShop Album, tagging and searching of photos, animated slideshows (great for trips), and uploading by several easy methods, including email.
They recently added admin rights separate from upload rights, and continue to add features regularly. They even have a blog for comments and discussion on development of the site (They have a demo that's relatively easy to follow.

How Much Will it Cost?
Amiglia Basic will be free, but will be limited to seven family members who can contribute, and ceiling of 100 mb or photo storage space. $50/year expands that to unlimited family contributors and 5 gb of storage space, while $100/year removes limits altogether. There even a pro version that allows photographers (genealogists?) to set up sites for their clients, who will have a full function site free for a year, then opt to pay the appropriate fee annually thereafter.

We got another post on the topic today by Illuminated Heritage:
http://blogs.nsls.info/heritage/archives/2006/04/amiglia.php