MyHeritage is the one of the world’s largest family-based social networks. Stefano Sessa was recently contracted as the Australian Country Manager. I managed to catch up with Stefano and asked him about the site, how it’s going and what they’ve got coming up for us.
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So, what’s MyHeritage all about?
MyHeritage is a niche social network that connects families. The family network ties in closely with building historical genealogical data and personal family trees. This means that when a user signs up with MyHeritage, he/she is instantly enabled to communicate to family members via a custom social network, that serves this purpose. Users are able to upload photos and tag them,
MyHeritage also boasts a face recognition service within it’s photo platform. This helps users build out their family tree and find distant family members, as MyHeritage will recommend possible relatives.
Furthermore, MyHeritage allows it’s users to download software locally to build out your family tree, and tie it in with your online profile.
Our vision has been to make it easier for people around the world to use the power of the Internet to discover their heritage and strengthen their bonds with family and friends.
As you know, there are many Australians living abroad and MyHeritage enables the families of these nationals to communicate and share their lives via a tailor-made social network.
Who are your competitors?
Our biggest competitors are geni.com and verwandt.de on the social networking side, and Ancestry on the genealogy side of things.
How is MyHeritage different to other family-based social networks or even more generic social networks, like Facebook, for instance?
We are different because of our size, reach and the underlying technology that powers many of our most interesting features
Size:
- Second largest site with a huge distance between top two and all other players
- Got to this point after just a few years with tremendous growth, the number one player has been around for 10 years
- 25 million members
- 260 million profiles
- More than 230 million photos
- 5 million family trees
Reach:
- Available in 25 languages today with many more coming in the next few weeks
- Support for more languages than all other competing sites
Technology:
- Pioneered the use of facial recognition technology on the internet. Used to automatically tag photos on MyHeritage or other photo sharing websites
- Innovative technology that can match family trees and suggest people who may be related based on connections and facts like names, dates and locations
- A powerful genealogy search engine that searches more than 1,500 relevant sites and databases, understands the results and serves them back to you on the MyHeritage website
- A software client for serious genealogists
What’s your background?
I have been in the internet for quite some time, although I am still a young professional. I work in South Africa as a Product Marketing Specialist for 24.com in the mobile department. This is my full time job. Further I consult for MyHeritage as their Country Manager for South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. I have worked extensively in the mobile industry.
How did you get involved with MyHeritage?
I was previously involved with Kindo, which MyHeritage acquired last month.
What has growth been like in Australia?
During September, MyHeritage had 6.5% more traffic in September than it did in August.
How many local users do you have?
To be exact, we have 354,006 members in Australia… You can find the total number of users for any country using our Member Map.
Who is your target market?
- MyHeritage is available in 25 different languages, more than any other genealogy website, so we have a hugely global consumer base and are excited about continuing to expand
- We have members from all over the world
- A majority are female (63%), which is to be expected since:
- Women are the primary historians for their families
- More and more women are going online, and now for the younger age brackets there are more women online than men (according to PEW research from April 2007)
- Women spend more time online than men (according to PEW research from April 2007)
- And almost all our users are under the age of 40 (92.5%)
What are your goals for the site?
Growth, growth and more growth
I can’t see how you make money just yet - not that that’s necessarily a problem. Any plans, however, to add revenue streams and, if so, how?
We have three very promising revenue streams that we’ll talk more about next year, but we’re focused right now on building the world’s biggest online destination for families and are excited about the size of the potential market
In the industry, however, there are many proven business models that we could incorporate including e-commerce (Notre Famille) and subscription based (Ancestry and Flickr PRO)
The majority of our members are female, which also makes advertising an interesting opportunity as brands are always on the lookout for ways to reach this demographic
Technology wise, what have you got coming up?
Unfortunately, I cannot disclose too much of our future plans just yet, however here is a breakdown of what we currently have:
- Pioneered the use of facial recognition technology on the internet (currently the number one organic result on Google when this term is searched) used to automatically tag photos on MyHeritage or other photo sharing websites
- Innovative technology that can suggest people who may be related based on connections and facts like names, dates and locations
- A powerful genealogy search engine that searches more than 1,500 relevant sites and databases, understands the results and serves them back to you on the MyHeritage website
- A software client for serious genealogists
Anything else you want to add?
I think this covers most of it, however, I would like to add that if there are any queries I am able to answer questions and E-Mails should just be directed to stefano@myheritage.com and I will respond as quickly as possible!
Thanks for taking the time to talk to me!!
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