Anne Wojcicki is the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the world's richest men. She is also co-founder of a biotech company called 23andme. She was recently quoted as saying, "If genealogy continues at its current rate, what we're offering will soon become a standard part of people's lives."
Wojcicki and her business partner Linda Avey reckon their service represents the future of social networking. In the same way that MySpace, Facebook, You Tube and Flickr allow users to share information - in the shape of videos, photos or instant messaging - Wojcicki and Avey can see a time where people worldwide will share and compare their genetic details.
"Amazing things are going to happen in the next five years or so," assures Wojcicki. "There will be an extraordinary evolution in our product and in genetics on the whole. After the success we've had in the US, Europe and Canada is the obvious next stage.
"But genealogy is a global phenomenon and ultimately we're looking at the worldwide stage."
You can read more in an article by Felix Lowe in the Telegraph at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/money/2008/01/25/bcn23andme.xml.
