myfamily.com

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Blog!

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Of course family groups are the best way to keep your family connected. But we’ve heard from so many myfamily.com users that they are looking for an easier way to keep friends and family not in a family group updated on life’s happenings as well. And many of you want a personal space to chronicle your life events. So today we’re really excited to announce that you can now start your own personal blog on myfamily.com!

To get started, just visit your myfamily.com profile page, click on the blog tab, then click the “Start your blog” button. It’s that simple.

As with your family groups, you can post news, photos and videos. Also, sharing your blog is as easy as sending your blog URL to anyone. They don’t have to be a member of myfamily.com. Very soon, we’ll introduce privacy setting options, the ability to ‘follow’ a blog and much more.

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Email Notifications Updates

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Group activity notification emails have been significantly enhanced. You can receive email notifications when someone comments on content you’ve added or something you’ve previously commented on or ‘loved’. The emails now tell you who in your family group made the comment and/or loved an item, and includes the actual comment in the email. So now when you get your email, but don’t have time to get online, you’ll at least know what’s happening.

And, for each group you belong to, you can decide whether or not to receive a daily email that contains a list of all the new content added to the group.

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Full Screen Slideshows

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You can now view your family group photos in a really cool, much larger slideshow! Whether you’re looking at all the photos on your family group, or just those by one of your members, or those in an album, the slideshow will work. Simply click on the new ‘Play Slideshow’ button at the album view or in the context of the photo stream. You can navigate through photos using previous/next buttons as well as auto-play with the pause/resume button. The title of each photo will also be displayed.

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New Filter/Sorting Options

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The filters and sorting options have been redesigned, improved and added to, making it much easier to find photos, videos, discussions and any other piece of content on your family groups. There are also new options when sorting by member, like the ability to display only the content that you have uploaded or the content that has been uploaded by specific people.

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Tag Search

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Now when you search for multiple tags, the search results will only show items that contain all of the tags you’ve entered into the search box. This makes all of the content on your site easier to find.

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Arrange An Album

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Organizing your family’s photos just became a whole lot easier. Use the new drag-and-drop interface to manually arrange photos within your albums or automatically arrange them based on Title, the date they were uploaded to the group or the date they were taken. You can even put them in random order by clicking the ‘Shuffle’ button.

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“Love This”

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Want to let a family member know that you love a great photo or exciting discussion that they’ve posted to your family group? The new “Love This” feature lets you do so with just one click, either on the homepage activity feed or while viewing the single item. A list of everyone who loves the item is also shown in both these locations.

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Copy To Another Group

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Now you can easily copy any discussion, album, video, photo or file from one family group to another. This can be done immediately after upload or while viewing a single item Just click the ‘Copy to another family group’ link, then choose which family group(s) you want to copy it to.

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Batch Sharing

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After uploading a group of photos or videos, you can now share that entire batch of items even if they’re not all in the same album. All you have to do is click the ‘Share with people…’ icon that appears immediately after upload. You can then share the items via email, by using the provided share link or by sharing out to Facebook, Twitter and other services.

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Other Enhancements

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Share To Multiple Emails
When sharing a photo, video or album, you can now send share emails to multiple email addresses by separating them with a comma.

What’s This?
We’ve added a few ‘What’s This?’ links around the site that help explain some of the features, such as Nicknames, Email Notifications and more.

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Since the 2.5 version of myfamily.com now includes many of the features you have come to love, we will be removing the 2.0 version sometime in the first week of October. If you have been using the 2.5 version exclusively, this change won’t affect you. If you’ve been using the 2.0 version, your links will automatically be redirected to 2.5.

We will continue to add more to the 2.5 version. In the next release, we are bringing you brand new features as well as some of your requested favorites: the ability to arrange photos and copy items to different family groups.

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Family Trees

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We’ve teamed up with Ancestry.com to bring their premier Family Tree tools to you and your family groups on myfamily.com. Ancestry.com Family Trees allow you to organize, preserve and share your family history, as well as search historical records to discover and learn more about your ancestors.

Import Family Trees:
If you’ve already got Family Trees built on Ancestry.com, you can easily share them with your family groups by importing them to myfamily.com. Just go to the ‘Family Trees’ tab, click on the ‘Import’ button, log in to Ancestry.com and select the Family Trees you’d like to import.

Create A New Family Tree:
If you’ve never used Ancestry.com before, why not build your first family tree today? Just go to Ancestry.com and get started for free. Once you’re finished, import it to your family groups by following the steps mentioned above.

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New Photo Features

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Rotate:
You can now rotate photos directly within myfamily.com. Just click on the ‘Rotate Left’ or ‘Rotate Right’ button until the photo displays correctly, then click the ‘Save Rotate’ button. Only group administrators and the person who added the photo are able to rotate it.

Pin To Homepage:
In addition to being able to feature album slideshows on the homepage, you can now feature a single photo by clicking ‘Pin Photo to Homepage.’

Add To Another Album:
You can also add the photo directly to an album by clicking ‘Add To Another Album.’ This will bring up all of the albums that exist on that group, and you can then select which ones you’d like to add it to. This feature also works for videos.

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More Enhancements

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New Uploader
Adding photos, videos and files to your family groups is now easier thanks to a more simplified uploader, which now displays how much of your monthly upload allowance you have left.

Upcoming Events Module
The Upcoming Events module on the group homepage has been redesigned, and now also displays the location of the event.

Photo Stories & Voice
Photo Stories that were created on the old version of myfamily.com are now accessible by clicking on the ‘Photos & Videos’ tab and then the ‘Show Only: Slideshows’ button. Voice Discussions and Voice Comments that were created on the old version are also now accessible on the new version.

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Non-Member Sharing

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You can now share all the photos, videos and albums on your family groups with anyone online. Just go to the item that you want to share and click the ‘Share this…’ link. Here are all the different ways you can share:

Email:
Type in the email address of the person you want to share with and click the ‘Send’ button. We’ll then send that person an email containing a link to the item you’ve shared.

Link:
Just copy the URL and paste it in an email, on your blog or anywhere else online. Anyone who clicks on it will be taken directly to the item you’ve shared.

Embed HTML:
Copy this HTML and place it in your own code to embed photos and videos into your group discussions and comments, or anywhere else online. This option is not available when sharing albums.

Post to Service:
You can quickly and easily post your shared items to other popular online services such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, Wordpress and MySpace. All you have to do is click on the icon and then log into the service you want to use.

When someone clicks on a link to your shared photo, video or album, they will see the item, its title and description, who shared it, and when. Example of a shared photo is picture below.

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Group Privacy Options

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Group privacy options have been added to the ‘Details’ tab under Group Settings. This allows administrators to choose who can view the group and whether or not other members can request to join it (more info on Membership Requests further below). The different privacy options are:

Public:

• Anyone can access your group and see all of its contents. However, they will not be able to add content or comment on anything.
• Anyone who views your profile page will see the group in the Family Groups module, and it will be labeled ‘Public.’
• Anyone can request to join the group.

Private:

• Only members of the group will be able to see its contents.
• Non-members will be shown a public landing page, which includes the group picture and description.
• Anyone who views your profile page will see the group in the Family Groups module.
• Anyone can request to join the group.

Secret:

• Only members of the group will be able to see its contents.
• Non-members cannot access the group or the public landing page.
• Anyone who views your profile page will not see the group in the Family Groups module (unless it’s being viewed by another member of that group).
• People cannot request to join the group.

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Public Landing Page

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If a group has a ‘Private’ privacy setting, a new tab called ‘Public Landing Page’ will appear under Group Settings. Here, administrators can add a group description that will display on the public landing page. They can also preview what the page will look like (example pictured below).

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Membership Requests

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Once someone requests to join a public or private group, all administrators will receive an email informing them that the request has been made. Requests can be approved or denied in the ‘Memberships’ tab of Group Settings. If a request is approved, an email will be sent to the requestor to notify them that they are now a member of the group.

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Download Photos & Videos

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You can now download photos (in their original size) and videos directly from your family groups to your computer. Simply go to the photo or video you want to download and click the ‘Download this…’ link on the right side of the screen.

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We wanted to let you know about a major update added to myfamily.com today. It not only makes the service much, much faster than ever before, but also includes a completely redesigned interface that has been simplified and is easier to use. Many new features have also been added. You can check it out for yourself by logging in at www.myfamily.com.

Check out the new update:
http://www.myfamily.com

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The Calendar feature allows you and your family to plan group events and remind each other about birthdays, holidays and other special occasions.

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Adding Events

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Events can be added directly from the group homepage by clicking on the ‘Create Event’ tab at the top of the activity feed. Each event can be given the following attributes:

Title
The name of the event.

Date
When the event will occur.

Time
What time of day the event begins. Simply leave this blank for an ‘All Day’ event.

Repeat Annually
Check this box if you want this event to appear each year. This is useful for things like birthdays, anniversaries and holidays.

Location
Where the event will take place, if applicable.

Event Type
Select from the drop-down menu whether the event is an Anniversary, Birthday, Holiday, Reunion, Wedding or just a general event.

Description
Use this area for any additional information you want to attach to the event (RSVP requests, driving directions, etc.).

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Calendar View - Monthly

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Clicking on the ‘Calendar’ tab will take you to a Calendar View of the current month. All events within the month will be shown, color-coded based on Event Type. You can use the filters at the bottom of the screen to select which event types to show. You can add more events from this page, navigate to past or future months, or switch to the List View.

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List View - Yearly

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The List View shows you all events within the current year. In addition to the information displayed in Calendar View, the List View also tells you who created an event, how many times it has been viewed and how many times it has been commented on. You can navigate to view past or future years and sort the events by Title, Event Type or Date. You can also filter the list by Event Type or switch back to Calendar View.

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Single Event

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Clicking through to an individual event will display all of its information, including where it will take place and the entire event description. You can also read all comments made on it and add one of your own. Group administrators and the person who created the event can also edit or delete the event from this page, as well as add tags to it.

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Files

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The Files feature allows you to store your computer files on your group and share them with your family members. This is especially useful when dealing with larger files that cannot be sent via email. To access the files section, simply click on your group’s ‘Files’ tab.

You will be taken to a page that shows all the files on your group. For each file, you’ll see who added it, the size of the file, number of people who have viewed it, number of comments on it and when it was uploaded. You can also sort the list using the following sorting options:

Recent Activity
This sorts files based on when the last comment was added to them.

File Name
This sorts files alphabetically, based on their name.

Uploaded by
This sorts files alphabetically, based on who uploaded them.

Date Added
This sorts files by the date they were added to the group. This is the default sorting option.

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Adding Files

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Files can be uploaded directly from the group homepage. Just click the ‘Upload Files’ tab at the top of the activity feed, select the files you want to upload from your computer to the group and click the ‘Begin Upload’ button.

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Single File

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When you click through to a single file, you will be able to download that file to your computer, read the comments that have been made on it and add a comment of your own. Group administrators and the person who uploaded the file can also edit or delete the file from this page, as well as add tags to it.

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Group Picture

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The Group Picture feature allows administrators to add an extra personal touch to their group. Once they upload a picture in the Group Settings area, that picture will appear next to the group on the Family Group module of the Profile Page, as well as the sign-up page that new people will see when accepting an invitation to the group.

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Group Theme

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The ‘Theme’ tab under group settings gives administrators the ability to change the look and feel of their group. There are 9 different themes available on Basic groups and 39 on groups under the Essentials Plan. Each theme offers a different background image and color scheme. Administrators can change themes as often as they’d like to celebrate different holidays, seasons and life events.

Administrators on Essentials groups can also use the Theme Details tool to change the colors of existing themes or upload their own background image to create a completely custom theme.

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Group Memberships

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The ‘Group Memberships’ tab under your profile settings gives you some brief information on all of the groups you belong to. It tells you whether a group is under the Basic or Essentials Plan and the renewal date of all Essentials groups. From this page, you can update billing information for any subscriptions that you are currently sponsoring, upgrade Basic subscriptions to Essentials or remove yourself from any group you belong to.

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Inbox

The Inbox feature allows you to send private messages to your family members (or anyone else who uses myfamily.com) outside of the group environment. This is useful when you want to communicate with an individual or a small group of people without creating a new discussion that all group members will be able to see. To access your inbox, you can either click on the ‘Inbox’ tab on your profile page or the ‘Inbox’ link that appears at the top of your screen, next to the ‘Family Groups’ drop-down.

From your inbox, you can write new messages, read any message you’ve written or received, or delete old ones. New messages are indicated by a bold subject line. If you have already read a message, but someone else adds a reply to it, the message will become new again.

You can receive email notifications that inform you when new messages are received. To turn this setting on or off, just go to the ‘Email Notifications’ tab of your profile settings.

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Writing A New Message

To compose a new message, you must first select who you want to send it to. Clicking on the ‘Add Recipients’ button will bring up a module (pictured above) that shows you everyone who belongs to any of the same groups you do.

If you belong to multiple groups, you may see a lot of people on this list. To find a specific person, just enter their first or last name into the ‘Filter…’ box. As you type, the list will automatically begin to filter for only people that match what you’ve entered.

Or you can use the alphabet filter by clicking on any of the letters that appear underneath the ‘Filter…’ box. Selecting one will filter for people with a first or last name beginning with that letter.

Alternately, if you want to send a message to just one person, or to a person that doesn’t belong to any of your groups, you can go to that person’s profile page and click the ‘Send a Message’ link that appears below their profile picture.

After you’ve selected who will receive your message, all you have to do is give it a subject line and write the message body. If you decide at the last minute that you want to remove someone from the list of recipients, just click on the small ‘x’ next to their name.

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Viewing A Message

To view a single message, go to your inbox and click on that message’s subject line. This will show you the original message and all replies added to it. It also displays everyone the message was sent to. This is important to note because all of those people will be able to see what you write in your own reply.

Clicking the ‘Delete This Message’ will only delete it from your inbox (until a new reply is made) and will not affect the inbox of others who received the message.

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