Roland Tanglao's Weblog

[Disclaimer: I am a friend of Kinzin honcho Michael Fergusson and Kinzin social media marketer Megan Cole]

I love Kinzin's aka "These are my Kids"'s new (well not so new my blog post is late!) "Print Pack" feature. This feature allows you to ship 10 prints for $US 2.50 plus shipping anywhere in the world!

I use it to send 10 photos per month to my family in Belgium and Ontario and also to us. Great idea (which I and probably others suggested to them!)

Digital photos are great but having hard copies is also great. And finally through the Print Pack Feature I have an easy way to do it from flickr (or from your local drive or facebook but I don't store my photos on local drives or facebook).

Feature Request: do the same thing for videos i.e. how about a DVD from my flickr videos shipped once a month for say $5 / month plus shipping?

Feedback on These are my kids:

1. Could we please have it as an independent website? There's no value for me having it as a facebook app (but I can see why it is a facebook app; the community is there, still I'd rather use it using my kinzin login rather than my facebook login)
2. The default privacy settings are to make everything visible in your Facebook feed. I'd prefer the default to be that everything is NOT visible but I concede I am over zealous about the privacy of our child.
3. Adding a photo to my print pack is not intuitive. You can't add all 10 at once, why not? Also I would prefer to have to be able to add photos via a tag e.g. kinzinprintjuly08 to my print pack.

UPDATE: Kate Milberry's thoughts. My name is Roland not Rowland :-) ! 

My Social Media for Parents session at BarCamp Vancouver 2007 was small but the discussion was lively not least of which was because Paul Prescod of Kinzin attended. My takeaways: privacy is not black or white but grey. Parents and everybody want an easy to way to share bits of their lives and media to their family and friends who may not even use computers which most social media sites don't handle gracefully since they are designed from an 'almost everything will be public' mindset for people who are wired with a capital W. This mindset doesn't correspond with the reality of most families!

Herewith the contents of the wiki page BarCamp / SocialMediaForParents (feel free to edit it and add your own thoughts):

QUOTE

My Family:

* me: 8000 private "family-only" photos on flickr, 2000 in blogware from pre flickr
* my sister in Belgium, parents in Hamilton, brother in Toronto
* 1 Mac user, my sister
* Rest Windows some without Quicktime, some with locked down corporate computers with old version of flash player (e.g. SightSpeed and YouTube didn't play because they had Flash 8 and not 9)
* my Mother doesn't have a computer or a cellphone - (she'd use one with voice or extremely easy to use interface e.g. "show my grandson's photos"), but realistically most people are NOT my mom, they either have (or will soon have) a cellphone and a computer (many empty nesters are enthusiastically learning cellphones and computers to communicate with their family and friends)

For Non Geeks

* real identity - a way to easily find your family and give them access to your family's media - until we get this flickr style identity contacts, friends, family is a kludge that will work but requires people to sign up which is hard for non geeks
* easy way to email photos, videos, etc for those who only use email (with built in "yousendit-like" tech)
* easy way to make prints (e.g. through local Shoppers Drug Mart or futureshop) for those who don't have a computer
* easy way to make DVDs for family (not just for non geeks, backup!), DVD subscriptions
* flickr style revokable guest passes
* allow people to create stories around their media no matter where it is
* allow people to subscribe via email, RSS and maybe even fax or snail mail (?!?)

For Geeks:

* Secure RSS (RSS over SSL with basic authentication)
* re-use media from other sites
* easy way to send SMS with text link to media and automatic Contec-like transcoding
* bulk uploaders and taggers
* work with Facebook

END QUOTE

Got children? Gonna have children? Got nephews and nieces? Got Multimedia of the kids and want to share with others who may not be Social Media saavy? Then come to my session at BarCamp Vancouver 2007 on Saturday and let's figure out together ways to improve Kinzin and other sites designed for sharing stuff with family. And if you have thoughts in advance add them to the wiki please!

FROM BarCamp / BarCampVancouver2007:

QUOTE

Social Media for Parents - sharing photos, videos and audio with your family, friends including the non techie ones (1/4 talk, 3/4 group discussion) aka "let's suggest some improvements for Kinzin :-) and other sites designed for families" to make them better suit parents and children

END QUOTE