The Generations Network (TGN) is the parent company of Ancestry.com and several other web sites. The company has now partnered with MyLife.com, an online "people search" service. The announcement is full of highly-positive, "forward looking" statements but I was interested in the words "enhance the people search experience for consumers." It sounds like some new services will soon be available for Ancestry.com subscribers. I do assume that MyLife finds living people, not deceased ancestors.
Perhaps the most telling was the last paragraph that describes some of TGN's "numbers," especially: "Ancestry.com users have created 10 million family trees containing 1 billion profiles and 20 million photographs and stories."
Here is the announcement in full:
MyLife’s Leading People Search Service Attracts Two New Partners
Partnerships with WhitePages and The Generations Network solidifies company’s position as leader in people search and demonstrates market demand for a robust people search solution
LOS ANGELES--MyLife™, the world’s most thorough people search, today announced two new partnerships that extend the reach of MyLife’s superior people search service and enhance the people search experience for consumers. WhitePages and Ancestry.com, part of The Generations Network, Inc. network of sites, are leveraging MyLife’s dynamic people search results to drive business value and extend the reach of their respective brands.
“The increase in market demand for a holistic and meaningful people search experience is palpable as more and more partners look to us to deliver the most comprehensive and accurate people search results on the Web,” said Jeffrey Tinsley, founder and chief executive officer of MyLife. “As the leader in people search, our partnerships allow top Internet companies to add value to their sites and improve the customer experience by providing people search results that offer a unique, 360-degree-view of real people.”
With this partnership, MyLife is taking the Google approach to a broad distribution of results to expand its reach and provide value to consumers who want help finding people. WhitePages and Ancestry.com can now supplement users’ search queries with MyLife’s contextually relevant and three-dimensional people search results.
“We’re constantly striving to improve our customer experience and see significant value in leveraging the reliable people search capabilities that MyLife provides,” said Andrew Wait, senior vice president and general manager of Ancestry.com. “This partnership will help us continue to grow our business and strengthen relationships with our users by providing a breadth and depth of relevant people search results powered by MyLife.”
These partnerships come shortly after the former Reunion.com and Wink services combined to launch MyLife, the most effective and efficient way for people to find and keep track of everyone in their life. MyLife is a profitable online business with over 15 million1 unique monthly visitors and a large user base of more than 50 million members growing at a pace of more than two million new members per month.
About MyLife
With its proprietary people search technology and access to hundreds of millions of profiles from across the web, MyLife.com is the single best source for finding anyone and following updates for both personal and professional contacts, wherever they go. MyLife has more than 62 million members and is growing at a rate of more than 2 million new members per month. The new company was founded by entrepreneur Jeffrey Tinsley, former CEO of GreatDomains.com and Reunion.com. To build on and expand its proven revenue generating model, MyLife has received $25 million in funding from Oak Investment Partners. For more information, please visit http://www.mylife.com.
About WhitePages
WhitePages Inc., a privately held company based in Seattle, WA., is the most trusted and comprehensive source of Connectory™ services for consumers to quickly find each other and connect with confidence. The company's network of sites include WhitePages.com, WhitePages.ca, 411.com, Address.com, PhoneNumber.com and its 1,300 partner sites including AOL.com and MSN.com. The on-the-go user can also access contact information via cell phone, smart phones and other Web-enabled mobile devices such as iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices.
About Ancestry.com and The Generations Network
The Generations Network, Inc., through its flagship Ancestry.com property, is the world's leading resource for online family history. Ancestry.com has local websites in nine countries and has digitized and put online over 8 billion names and 28,000 historical records collections over the past ten years. Since July 2006, Ancestry.com users have created 10 million family trees containing 1 billion profiles and 20 million photographs and stories. The Generations Network also includes myfamily.com, Genealogy.com, Rootsweb.ancestry.com, MyCanvas.com, dna.ancestry.com, Family Tree Maker and Ancestry Magazine. More than 9.2 million unique visitors spent over 4.7 million hours on a TGN website in March 2009 (comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide).
