MyHeritage -- Snaps Up Geni.com

<-------works in PR and would have had it coordinated before the announcement. (so hire me!) lol

Just a few thoughts regarding the new privacy rules....

1. It will make it much more difficult to find living relatives one does not know about. For example, I had no idea how big my Dutch family actually was until I joined Geni two or so months ago. I would have never been able to find all the 3rd and 4th cousins I have if their profiles were completely private due to the fact that they are living.... so we just enter all profiles as deceased when we don't know now basically

2. I think all profiles of people deceased for X number of years at this point should be automatically made public. If Geni's true spirit is to make a world-wide family tree, then there is no reason to have people from the early 1900's and beyond marked private regardless of the relationship to the profile manager. I could make half the pre-war Dutch on here private if I truly wanted to (as can many users w/ their relatives), but that just defeats the purpose.

I'm very grateful to Geni and the users here as I would have never found as many Dutch relatives on my own had I not joined. That said, private profiles and private trees full of deceased individuals doesn't serve the greater good.

Just my two cents for what it's worth :))

Good points, Wendi. The tree model on Geni leads to all the areas you did not know before - and may be less likely to find out without collaborating on a World Family Tree.

Beth Marie Beeman there is great benefit to being a Pro member! With Geni Pro, you have access to tools that will help you grow your family tree easier. As a reminder, tree matches are still a Pro feature. And as we add MyHeritage's Smart Matching technology, they will only get better. Smart Matching will also automatically search over 1 billion MyHeritage profiles to help you discover new relatives even faster.

Additional Pro features include enhanced search, unlimited data uploads and premium customer support. Over the next few months, we will continue to add more features to Geni and we will keep you apprised about new benefits and capabilities.

Wendi - I am very much against any reduction in the Profiles Geni allows us to make Private. To me, this would be a major violation of promises made, infringe on folks' privacy thanks to the Timeline Events being shared with other profiles, info in the About often including info on others, etc.

Private User That's what makes the world go round.....

Do you all forget about the mess before September 2011? When everybody were able to merge profiles.
And now you are talking about making profiles public. Only living persons should stay private, as far as I can understand.
Does Geni want it all to be as mess once more?
I'll be quietly looking to what happens from the sideline. But don't spoil my tree.

You can google public profiles. In this way you are forced to hide your documentation. Using Dropbox is a very good way to keep your information inside your familygroup.
But that's not the idea with Geni, is it? ;-)
Stop letting people be able to google information from Geni profiles.

I agree, Noah. In my opinion, MyHeritage user friendly applications. This is evidenced by many more users than in geni.
Jiri

P.S. But it is of course just my personal opinion.

i can see both sides of this debate there are certin conditions when you would want members private... example being at least 2 generations before you living or deceased so as a lock down against id theft

Michael
If you are not logged into Geni you are able to watch the information in About Me and the Timeline.
And my guess - if the enclosed documents are public as the profile in question, you'll be able to google them too.
All our work just lay there to be picked up by none-members of Geni.
And if all deseased profiles will be made public in the future .... what a mess.

Hej, don't you understand business? Tutak sold all data, got cash and will disappear; so what - I also am a lifetime member and have expected something like this after all the "strategy" changes during the last year.
Tutak simply wanted to make money.l

First, a question for Geni:
As a user that did not pay to go Pro, I have received that message from Geni, regarding free tree matches.
I have tried to do that, but still seems I am being asked to pay for it.
So is this "free merging" going to take effect at a later date?

Second, for the Geni users that were Pro and are upset at the (proposed?) free merging for all users:
I understand your frustration, as no one wants to learn they could have obtained a service for free at a later date. But if you think about it, this is the same when a price is later reduced on a TV or other article; yes, it s**cks to see others paying less, but is a fact of a free market.
Also, think that now you will have a greatly expanded number of users that you can match trees with ! I have seen posts from Pro users that complain about not enough trees to merge with, because the free users could not merge with them.

Tree matching is different from merging.

Merge

http://help.geni.com/entries/469660-how-can-i-merge-my-tree-with-a-...

Match

http://help.geni.com/entries/20041572-how-to-use-tree-matches

LOL Jose. It is not the same as learning a price is reduced. That analogy only works for something tangible like a car or soda pop. Doesn't work for a service. And, I"m not sure how enthralled I am about having more people creating profiles only to merge them into the tree. It's complicated enough with duplicate profiles. And, thank you Erica for clearing up the Merge v. Match definition. Not sure I see solace in it, but at least I understand it better. I guess the bottom line is that it really doesn't matter much what we say at this point, the "New Geni" is a done deal. It might be best to get on with it :)

Well, I live in South Africa and became a member of both Geni and Myheritage at some cost to me, since our money is not worth much in the international scene - I would like to know how the merger is going to affect me and what benefits (if any - says my cinical self) will accrue via the merger. For me mergers and acquisitions mean only one thing - more money making for someone on the take?

Ok Beth, so you don't think the analogy works, but you don't explain why.
Why does it not work for a service? My main point is that people naturally get upset when prices for products or services they have already purrchased go down.
But who am I to tell you why you are upset, or that you shouldn't be as upset?
So I will not argue this anymore.

What I will do is share a thread where apparently Geni users were asking for non-paying members to be allowed to accept merge requests:
http://www.geni.com/discussions/101533

That thread is a year old, but I believe it shows there is certainly value (to some members at least) in allowing non-pating members more rights for three merging.

Again Beth, I respect how you feel, but I truly see this change as beneficial to all.
Side note: I believe as well that Geni is responding with this announcement to a competitor's threat, since FamilyTree.org has announced free tree merging and a free tree creaing software (very basic at the moment, BTW)

It all depends on which side of the divide you're on. If you paid, you're upset because you paid for something that is worth less now than when you decided to buy it. But if you DIDN'T pay, you're happy because the privileges that they took away from you when they decided to make them Pro options are now available again. There is NOTHING they could do that would make both groups happy. Frankly, I'm in the second group, and I am glad to see they did it.

Sure. There is something they can do. They can either add an additional benefit to the Pro accounts to replace what is now free OR they can reduce the price. (all things you can't do with a tangible item such as a car) I'm betting on the first thing and hopefully we will see some of this soon as the merger with My Heritage rolls on.

As for wanting everyone to be able to merge, I stand by my thoughts on that :)

Im a PRO member and Im really happy that geni finally have decided that everyone can accept a merge.

When I try to merge profiles, the other user has to accept it, but without being pro a lot of profiles and trees will still be duplicates. So im happy
for this change..

I believe there will still be worth it to be a PRO, but time will show.
Dont know much about Heritage yet, but I believe that as members
we can benefit from it ;)

"Accept a merge" - Is that the same as being able to merge?

Being able to merge and "accepting a merge" are two very different actions.
As i understand it BASIC users have always been able to accept merges, the new changes mean that BASIC users can now request merges, which was the way things worked before the rules changed late in 2011.
Despite the fact that i am a PRO and the service i have paid for is now devalued slightly i'm not the least worried by that, the benefit to all users that comes with BASIC users having more abilities far out ways this "loss". The real "losers" are actually the Lifetime members as i can just cancel my payments and revert to a free account :)

I'm more interested in merging between MyHeritage Trees and Geni or at least importing MyHeritage data into The Tree, but there doesn't seem to be much talk of merging the sites, only matching searrches, etc.
I have relatives that left Geni because of the limit to tree size for Basc members, since then she has extended our tree beyond what is here on Geni and also made contact with several other people with overlapping trees on MyHeritage. I have access to her tree and thru her to their trees but frankly the idea of cutting and pasting from that site to Geni has no appeal what so ever. This relative actually preferred Geni over MyHeritage but wasn't willing to pay to go PRO, since she has built her tree on MyHeritage there is little incentive for her to move back to Geni even though it is now free again.

Well, Alex, how long do you think it is going to be free again?

Alex you're talking about a "bridge" between MyHeritage trees and Geni trees. Amanda says in the FAQ it is being looked at but could take a few years.

"Bridge" is fine by me, it has to be called something :)
So the connection between the two sites means that we will get a lot more Tree Matches and hopefully the quality of these matches will be improved by the MyHeritage software, BUT how will those new matches be useful if we cannot merge trees between the two sites?
Last week i had a free account at MyHeritage and i could look at "my" family tree that was being built there, presumably i will soon be notified of a Tree Match between that tree and the Tree here on Geni. What then? How has the situation changed any with the new ownership?

Also, if the new Tree Match software starts comparing all the isolated MyHeritage trees against Geni's Tree then surely there is going to be a mountain of Matches to wade thru!

If, or when, this Bridge comes about it seems to me that it would be equivalent to a massive gedcom import with all the duplicates that would entail, especially if MyHeritage is mostly isolated trees and could have alot of duplication.

Alex Geni and MyHeritage are separate companies. They will look at ways to take advantage of their business relationship, in the interests of both users bases ... And maximizing profit of course. :)

I've already looked a little at MH trees thru search and it's all the same stuff as Ancestry trees and FTM sites and so on. What i hope to take advantage of is RECORD matches so Geni can continue to build a well sourced and world tree organized world tree.

Randy Schoenberg - thank you for adding your legal expertise to the Private vs Public discussion:
http://www.geni.com/discussions/80793?msg=835419

Private tree owners - continue to try to Scare everyone with Incorrect facts - so they can Control what they think is - only Their tree on Geni. This, even when their branch, is part of the 1 Big tree.

We do Not know "yet" (coming in future months) what GENI's New Rules will be - as to Profiles of Dead people.

Glad to hear Geni's focus will be: "Geni.com will remain focused on building a single family tree of the world".
http://help.geni.com/entries/22475611-how-will-the-two-websites-ope...

Now that Geni exists in name & location only - is part of a New company with their old Rules & will develop New ones - the Private vs Public of Dead people profiles - can Finally be resolved, at least I hope :)

Peter Rohel (c) *cheers to that! :))

Erica Howton I agree and would love to see Geni get back to supporting finding records at least somewhere ;)

Alex if I really want to and work on a good computer from an easy to read source, I can easily enter 100 profiles in a couple of hours, I'm really not seeing the dire need for data interchange.

But I always see the need for better researched, documented & presented trees.

It's so very right what Erica Isabel Howton writes above: "But I always see the need for better researched, documented & presented trees."
- And that will be a great problem in the future in merging profiles.
I wonder why lots of public profiles appears without places of birth etc.