GenealogyWise - Here We Go Again

The other day I received an email from Familylink.com about this new service called GenealogyWise.  Inside the email it basically said they are writing to me as an "influential" (hahaha) member of the genealogy community and they want to hire 10 people to register for and add content to their new genealogy social networking site.  It further said to let them know if I was interested.  I replied and said of course I'm interested - who would turn down a few bucks in times like these?  Then I waited...and waited...and waited...and I'm still waiting.  They must have found people who were just a wee bit more influential than I was.  I guess I'm just gonna have to register and play with GenealogyWise for free.

I registered yesterday with just a minimum amount of info in my profile and before I knew it there were 11 friends requests in my email box.  I thought this would be like Facebook where one day I had 2 friends, then a few days later (after the great genealogy migration began) I had close to 100, but I think I've plateaued - who can really handle more than 11 friends anyway? 

My first thought when I heard about GenealogyWise was "on no...not another one," but after signing up, and exploring a little, I now think it's a pretty cool interface.  I like how it's organized and think it's got all the elements a genealogy themed social networking site needs.  I know some are saying GenealogyWise could make the Facebook genealogy community less vibrant by drawing people away, but I think most will just participate in both.  One thing I don't like is the "Genealogy Search" link at the top of the page taking you to World Vital Records.  Unless WVR has drastically changed since I let my membership expire a few months back, clicking on this link is a wasted effort.

While I do like the look and feel of GenealogyWise, my big beef with it (and with Facebook) is there would be too much work involved.  There are a number of people who put a lot of effort into the genealogy community on Facebook, there own blog(s), other genealogy sites, and now GenealogyWise.  I really don't know how people do it because I can't keep up with all of the activities.  I haven't posted much for the last 3 or 4 months and one reason is sensory overload.  There are just too many online activities (and normal life activities) distracting me from my own ancestor hunting, and from posting regularly on my blog.  Guess I'm just not a good multi-tasker (actually my basic laziness is the answer, but we won't talk about that).

Familylink was probably wise (no pun intended) not hiring me to do whatever it was they wanted those 10 influnential genealogy types to do because my heart's really not in it.  I expect I will visit GenealogyWise occasionally to see what's happening (as I do on Facebook), but I just don't see myself putting much effort into adding content to the site.  I do wonder if I will get more than 11 friends...it seems like others are getting hundreds of friends, and I only have 11...I'm really a very friendly guy.

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Comments

[tim agazio]

Jasia, You make a good point about people spending more time social networking rather than doing actually genealogy...I'm sure there are some that can do both well, but people like me can only do one thing at a time.

By the way...I already knew you were my friend so I guess you don't have to be on the site.

Tim

[Jasia]

I'll be your friend, Tim!

I'm not on GenealogyWise though.

They contacted me with the same email. I didn't responded because I was also thinking, "oh no, not another one!". I was hoping that the geneabloggers wouldn't jump on this ship too. If you've only got 11 friends there must not be many on GenealogyWise yet. Please oh please let them come to their senses before it's too late and they give up genealogy in favor of social networking as their passion, LOL!