A home in cyberspace
All afternoon and evening the thought of making Beyond primarily web-based has impressed itself upon me. The web is the future of software development. Sure, there’ll probably always be desktop apps, but the tide is changing (and has already changed in many ways). E-mail started it (with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.), and we’re seeing it now with word processing (Writely), photo storage (Flickr), bookmarks (del.icio.us), library collections (LibraryThing), to-do lists (Ta-da List), and lots more.
So what does this mean for genealogy? Until today, I’ve been firmly of the opinion that genealogy should be done on the desktop. In retrospect, what was I thinking?!? Genealogy is all about collaboration now — that’s the new world that the Internet has opened up to us. In the past, researchers tucked themselves away in corners of the library, with relatively infrequent collaboration happening through writing letters by post and phone calls. It was good, but now we have e-mail, IM, mashups, and social networks. The possibilities are endless. Take WeRelate, for example — a wiki for genealogy (I talked about it a few days ago). All sorts of things are happening, and there’s a lot more that can happen. Tagging, interfaces with maps and library collections, the ubiquity of web browsers, etc.
So, here’s what I imagine: Beyond becomes like WordPress. Rather than worrying about desktop clients, we’ll focus solely on the web client. You install Beyond on a server and can then work on your genealogy from any computer in the world, just as with WordPress you install it on a server and can then work on your blog from any computer in the world.
I’ve considered starting something up to offer hosting (ala WordPress.com), but that’s business and I rather abhor commercial ventures. But of course I wouldn’t be averse to someone else taking care of that (probably with the accounts free for up to a certain number of individuals and after that $5/month or $10/month or whatever, to cover costs and then eventually make a profit). The Church has Family Tree, but I think there’ll still be people who want to store their genealogy on their own servers (just as with blogs, there are lots of people on Blogger but then lots who break off and host their own blog, like I did).
As I’m thinking about this, it’s starting to feel awfully similar to Family Tree. The main difference I’m seeing now is that you can install the software on your own server (as I just mentioned), and I’m thinking there will be several functionality differences as well. But without knowing just what Family Tree is or is planning to become, it’s hard to say.
I feel good about this. Truth be told, I haven’t done much desktop coding in the past five or six years — it’s almost all been web development. This is where I feel at home, and it makes a lot more sense to start here. (Not to mention the fact that this decision makes the whole project a heck of a lot less daunting.) The only disadvantage I can think of is if you go somewhere that doesn’t have Internet access. But really, almost everywhere does, and within the next ten years the number of places on the globe without Internet access may be able to be counted on a single hand. (Global wireless — that would be nice!) Besides, I plan to open an API, which means anyone who wants to write a desktop client (for Mac, Windows, Linux, their cell phone, whatever) could do it easily and have it sync with the server. (I still plan on using a CVS model, by the way.)
Having just come up with this, I haven’t figured out all the details yet, but I think I’ll use Ruby on Rails (Ajaxified), based on an SQL database. Any comments?
One last benefit: if Beyond is first and foremost a web application, integration with other sites becomes natural. Imagine being able to link into your Flickr photos, or get to your genealogy-related bookmarks from del.icio.us, or a WordPress plugin which lists the surnames you’ve been working on recently in the sidebar, or direct links to WeRelate surname/place pages from your pedigree. (This is just brainstorming, by the way.)
Well, this seems to be a good development. It’ll still be a massive task, but not quite as hard as the task of developing both a web client and a desktop client. Things are looking good…
Technorati Tags: genealogy, Gmail, Writely, Flickr, del.icio.us, LibraryThing, Ta-da List, WeRelate, WordPress, Family Tree, Ruby on Rails, Ajax, SQL
Posted in Beyond
Comment feed for this post
Hey, thanks for the mention. And good luck! I completely agree with you. In my opinion, whoever comes up with “Flickr for genealogy” will have a wonderful little business. And wouldn’t it be fun to work on something fun all the time? Shoot me a line if you want to talk shop!
Thanks for your comment, Tim. And thanks for creating LibraryThing. :) Since we each only have one lifetime, it’s definitely good to spend it working on things we love rather than monotonously grinding away on something we loathe.
I’d really like to see the “Flickr for genealogy”. Or “Facebook for genealogy”. Or “last.fm for genealogy”. I’ve been searching for signs of someone looking to apply social networking ideas to genealogy, and the closest I’ve seen are some of your thoughts on this site. Everywhere else people are still thinking in terms of desktop applications. Look at Mashable, everyday there’s discussion of some new play trying to capture the Myspace audience, or knockoffs of Flickr or delicious, but there’s no sign there of that someone has aimed those ideas at the large number of people interested in finding their roots. A central web application for collaboration that links researchers can be just what many people need to make their efforts fun and useful.
I became disenchanted with my research because it was too isolated, and many of the most interesting trails were three or four steps removed from my central line, so that it didn’t make sense to be investing much effort following them. I’d like to see a site where I can enter my family, and it will find connections to distant relatives who are also members and interested in collaborating, much like myspace connects friends of friends or last.fm finds others who share taste in music. The person who might be most interested in some primary sources that I have could be my fifth cousin twice removed living across the world in Australia, but she also might have old letters or photographs that open stories into the people I’m primarly researching.
Ben, I do believe we have an opportunity here :).
Indeed. :) This is going to require some thought. Let me mull over it tonight and post about it tomorrow.
But in the meantime, here are my first impressions:
1. Collaboration along these lines (on a Flickr/Facebook/last.fm scale) is certainly something I’m interested in. It’s the wave of the future. I haven’t yet figured out the best way to pull it off, though, because genealogical data is a wee bit more complex than photos, with hierarchies and all that. But I don’t plan to let that stop me. :)
2. Starting something like this (a central location) would solve the one problem with Beyond as it stands: namely that you’d have to have your own web server. Most people don’t, and so most people wouldn’t be able to use it. A Flickr for genealogy (”Ancestr”? “Linkr”? :)) would be able to offer free accounts up to a limit (perhaps 1000-5000 individuals in the file) and then charge a modest amount ($5/month, maybe).
3. Ideally (perhaps) you’d be able to use Beyond on your own file, separate (and this is where you’d do all your research and stuff), and then you’d be able to publish it directly to Linkr (or whatever it gets called). Or would people prefer to do their research directly on the site, sharing it with others? Hmm. I suppose it could be a “share with friends/family only” kind of a thing, in which case there’d need to be no separation.
3.5. Which means, Beyond would be the software running Linkr (or whatever). You could install Beyond on your own site if you wanted to. That’s probably not good business practice, but I want people to be able to do that.
4. It would definitely have OpenID login support. :) But that’s irrelevant at this stage of the discussion.
Just thoughts hitting the fan…
Doing genealogy involves many different types of tasks with different types of behaviors and skills. That’s part of what can make it daunting, and fun :). However, the research portion gets probably too much attention, and turns too many people away. I know for example, podcasting has opened up a realm of genealogy/family history to some in my family that are generally turned off by it.
However, I think you’re on the right path here. I do not yet see any way to stop using a desktop client (i.e. there are things you can do in iPhoto that are impossible to do in Flickr (at least for now), and vice-versa). Let’s face it, data entry on the web is poor to fair at best (though sadly many desktop apps don’t improve that significantly). But right now, I think the most bang for the buck is in collaboration and synchronization, and right now that’s firmly in the web domain. There are plenty of good/decent data entry desktop apps already, and unless you have a breakthrough idea there, not much win.
So starting and focusing on the web client is indeed likely to be the best solution at this time. The desktop has been done for a long time, and breakthroughs there are going to be harder to come by. It seems the next wave of innovation will be web-focused, then I think a time of specialization. For right now, Google can only realistic happen on the web, and good 3D can only realistically happen on the desktop. We need good interoperable solutions on both ends to create web/desktop mashups that harness the strengths of each. Those connections right now are sorely lacking. Good Luck!!!
Hi Ben,
What on earth happened to your Collaborative Beyond Geneology Project?
Is it up and running?
Thanks for your interest, David. As for what happened — well, I ran out of steam. Coding is an activity that takes an enormous amount of upkeep and maintenance (ad infinitum, really), and I found that I didn’t want to spend all my time doing that. So instead I’ve been designing books and writing and stuff.
I do hope that someone picks up the ball and runs with it, though.
[…] Tim’s comment about a “Flickr for genealogy” has sparked a flurry of thoughts in my head, and here’s what I’ve decided. […]