Online social networking allows us to easily keep in touch with the world at large. With a few keystrokes, you can let everyone in your network know about an event, post your status, chat, send a message, and post pictures and videos. With typical social networking sites, you can find old friends, old flames, former classmates, that guy from the accounting department that you used to work with. Don’t you wish it was as easy to communicate with your family? With FamDing.com, now you can. While it has become commonplace to "friend" everyone from co-workers to acquaintances, FamDing is the first networking site really geared towards connecting the modern family.
The story of FamDing begins over 15 years ago in a modest house in Colorado Springs, CO. The FamDing founders were growing up in a hectic household filled to the brim with 6 kids. While the eldest was preparing to move across the country to begin college, the youngest was just entering her terrible twos. Everyone in between was just trying to fight for seconds at the dinner table. Of course, we can’t forget our parents. Mom, who has 9 brothers and sisters, and dad, who has 10 of his own, were both working hard to raise a family. As the kids began to move away from home and go their own ways, it became harder and harder for our close-knit family to stay in touch. For the family members separated by age, it was difficult to even have a relationship at all.
At about the same time, the internet was coming of age. Our family latched onto e-mail over “snail mail” and to other technologies that allowed for quicker communication: instant messaging and chat rooms. While these avenues helped keep our immediate family in touch across the miles, the gap still existed between our extended family. Between kids and work (and the distance), our parents weren’t able to communicate often enough with their brothers and sisters. That, of course, led to a gap between us and our aunts, uncles and cousins. Certainly, this just wasn’t limited to our families. Even with the rising popularity of online social networking sites, the founders of FamDing saw that the family market was being underserved.
Most competitors focus on basic communication and family trees. FamDing goes beyond the basics and provides useful, free features that help promote and strengthen family ties, despite distances. Ever need to grab your brother’s address? Try FamDing’s family address book. Always forgetting to email those pictures to your relatives? Not a problem with FamDing’s photo albums. Ever wish you could see your mom, but you just don’t have the money to fly across the country? Introducing FamDing video conferencing (with up to 4 people!). FamDing also lets you keep track of important family events and even post messages to one another through the message board. The features are private and easy to use (and free), so you don’t have to worry about only staying connected with the family “techies”.
With all that said, it’s been a long journey, but the story of FamDing.com is only beginning. We are still working on building a large user base, increasing our functionality, and competing with the already established social networks. We believe that social networks are missing the family niche. As we’ve done in the past, we’ll continue to adapt and grow. If all else fails, we’ll still have our family at our side. |