This changes everything.

Tim’s comment about a “Flickr for genealogy” has sparked a flurry of thoughts in my head, and here’s what I’ve decided.

1. Web all the way. Meaning, to pull this off, it has to be a child of the Web, not a desktop app that happens to be on the web. Think social networking. That’s going to be the focus, not so much the data. (But don’t worry, the data will still be important.)

2. Simple. While being able to store anything and everything is a noble ideal, I think it’s only going to work (at this stage) if the fields are set (the core data), with expandable metadata later on.

3. Low barrier to entry. It has to be really easy to sign in and get started. To host this, we come to…

4. A startup. I never really thought I’d do this, but I think it’s time to create a startup to host Beyond. It’s going to be a service rather than a software package. (For now, that is. Later on I’ll wrap the software into an install-on-your-own-server deal, but that’s secondary.) Time to figure out a good business model…

5. Web 2.0. Kind of in line with #1, Beyond will now be even more part of the Web 2.0 paradigm. For example, individuals and families will have permalinks, so that you can tell people about them. You’ll be able to share whatever parts of your family tree you want to. There’ll be a simple blog built-in (to function as a research log, basically), but you’ll also be able to pull in an RSS feed from your existing blog instead if you want, and you’ll be able to post to your blog directly from Beyond (via the various blogging APIs). There’ll be tags, watchlists (RSS feeds, that is), comments (on individuals, families, your profile, etc.), the works.

6. Community. I think a lot of the stuff in #5 will help with this. As for linking people together, I’m thinking about something along the lines of LibraryThing’s “works.” Basically, you have John Doe born in 1801, and user B has a John Doe born in 1801, and the system automatically picks them up as a possible match. You can say, “My John Doe is the same as user B’s John Doe.” And it’ll keep track of how many people say so-and-so is the same as so-and-so. I haven’t figured out all the logistics yet, but this seems like the right way to go. And I hesitate to have the system actually match anyone together; I’d rather leave the logistics of that to the humans.

7. Share. So far I’ve been in the genealogy-is-private mindset, but I think I’ve finally gotten rid of that. In this new world, it’s about sharing. Sure, you’ll be able to mark your data private if you want, but the default will be to share, share, share.

8. People, not pedigree. Up till now, my mindset has been that there’s this structure out there — a pedigree — and you make people fit into the pedigree. It doesn’t always work, though, because people got remarried, etc. When looking at Flickr last night for inspiration, however, I realized that there’s a better way to go about it. (Well, I think it’s better. Only time and a prototype will tell. :)) Individuals are like photos, and families are like groups. Instead of putting things into pedigrees, you add individuals (like adding photos), and then you can sort them into families (like putting photos into groups or sets, with predefined roles like “father,” “mother,” “child”). To link generations together, you just put the linking person into both families. (For example, Hoover Macgillicuddy is the father of Family A. His parents are Wilford and Maretta Pinegar, who are in Family B. You just have to add Hoover as a child in Family B.) And it’ll automatically stitch together the pedigree for you. What this means is that you won’t be doing most of your work from the pedigree. Instead, you’ll work from the individual and group lists (using browse and search). It’s different, to be sure, but I’ve got a gut feeling that it’s a good change. We’ll see.

9. A deadline. I’ve got a feeling that I can make this happen by the end of August. I don’t know yet if that’s utter madness or not, but heck, there’s a rumor floating around that Flickr went up two weeks after the initial idea. If they can do it, so can I. (And if the rumor’s false, well, that’s not going to stop me. :))

10. A name. Somebody’s already got www.beyondproject.com. I do rather like the name Beyond, so it’s time to come up with some variation with a dot-com ending (kind of like how Backpack is at www.backpackit.com). Hmm…

Posted in Beyond, Design
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