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MyFamily.com comes to a sad but expected end

By Scott Tibbs, June 12, 2014

About thirteen years ago, I became a member of MyFamily.com, setting up a website for my family and purchasing an annual subscription shortly thereafter. It was a great way to keep up with family, and I was able to watch family (especially little ones) grow. I was able to keep up with family members on at least a weekly basis, whereas I would otherwise have spoken with them perhaps once a year.

Now comes the news that MyFamily.com is going out of business. I cannot say I am surprised. MyFamily.com has had absolutely horrible customer service the last couple years. MyFamily.com was a great service for a long time, but that time has come and gone. The fact that a database error obliterated all of the member data on the MyFamily.com site I managed did not help, nor did the refusal to help me get it back. Accusing me of deleting the members myself was the final nail in the coffin. They would never get another dime from me.

MyFamily.com was a great concept back in 2001, but the advent of modern social networking sites (especially Facebook) was the death knell for MyFamily.com. More and more, people who used to post regularly on MyFamily.com were posting updates, pictures and news (especially pictures) on Facebook instead of MyFamily.com. When Facebook opened to the world in 2007 the end was near for MyFamily.com.

It is unfortunate that MyFamily.com ended the way it did. In some ways, MyFamily.com was actually more user-friendly than Facebook, especially for its intended purpose. I know some people actually prefer the MyFamily.com interface to Facebook, which is understandable. I know I certainly got a lot of use out of the product, before MyFamily.com gave up on the concept of customer service. Good bye, MyFamily.com. It was fun while it lasted.