I would really like to see a demo before signing up, but I think a family based social network is a phenomenal ideaf or the very reason you said: keeping track of things going on with detached families.

Maybe detached isn't the right word, but I know in my case, family spread across the US and even Europe, with some members in Iraq I think this is GREAT.

Thanks! Glad you like the idea. (And good point about seeing a demo first -- we definitely want to add something along those lines as a next step.)

It's a nice idea: How is it better than using Geni.com?

While Geni does have family-oriented tools, it focuses first on genealogy. The implicit "goal" is to build the largest possible family tree, and presumably to use its social networking features to learn about and create new relationships with distant relatives on that tree. While Geni does a great job of it, there are a lot of families that don't have time or interest in genealogy, and are instead just looking for a simple way to stay in touch with a core group.

So we're focusing instead on immediate families and other closely-connected groups that need a simple way to share and manage information among existing members. They're looking to save time, rather than pick up a new set of information to manage (family tree). That's why I say Kinverge is more of a family intranet site than a social network.

To think of it another way, the Geni social graph is a traditional mesh, while Kinverge's is formed of circles that touch at points where members belong to multiple groups (your family group and your in-laws' family group, etc.). You could make Geni work that way, but it would require changing a lot of the default privacy settings, which non-tech-savvy family members have a hard time doing.

Thanks, keep the feedback coming! Much appreciated.