Thursday, August 18, 2011

Geni Opens Service For Institutions

Los Angeles-based Geni, the online family tree and genealogy site, said Thursday that it has launched a new program to allow institutions like public libraries and genealogical societies with full access to the site. The firm said the new offering comes due to its recent switch to limit certain features like merging and site-wide search to only paid users. Geni said that local libraries and organizations are eligible to apply for the accounts. The firm had reported receiving some push back earlier this week after the switch, which limited free account functionality. The firm looks to be trying to convince its users to become "Geni Pro" users, the firm's subscription, premium service. Geni launched in January of 2007 as a free service, created by former PayPal co-founder David Sacks, and switched to a "freemium" model in December 2008 with its Geni Pro service, as it went from building up users to figuring out a business model.

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