OurStory: ‘Social Scrapbooking’

A new (dare I say yet another) social networking site launched today — OurStory.com. It enters a field that is growing progressively more crowded. The site seeks to appeal to women and occupy a segment that was abdicated by Lycos, when the struggling portal closed Circles and went instead for a MySpace wannabe destination: Planet. As opposed to dating or a way to meet new friends, Circles was supposed to be a way to manage existing family and friends relationships online. But it didn't get any traction.

No existing network has yet successfully established itself in that space. Sites like MySpace and Facebook largely appeal to people who don't yet have families; OurStory, by contrast, is clearly targeting a different, older demographic. InsiderPages and Judysbook which appeal to that "mom demographic" are highly directed and don't allow for a full range of self-expression. Thus recognizing that moms and families are largely underserved by existing social networks, an increasing number of sites is cropping up to target them. I wrote about some of these new sites previously:

• Maya's Mom: A New Mom-Driven SN
• Online Moms and Their Pubs
• More on Marketing to Online Moms
  

Flickr-esque, OurStory also seeks to tap into "scrapbooking," a pastime that is both increasingly popular and appeals almost exclusively to women. One might put OurStory into a new category: online scrapbooking. The phenomenon is largely "under the radar" for most people but it's big business. According to an article that recently appeared in the NY Times about "scrapbooking cruises" (that's right) here are some impressive data:

A survey in 2004 by Creating Keepsakes, a magazine about scrapbooking, reported that about 25 percent of American households includes someone who participated in it, supporting a $2.5 billion industry that supplies acid-free paper, durable adhesives, tools and all manner of decorative accessories. Scrapbook stores have opened around the country, Target and Wal-Mart carry scrapbook merchandise, and EK Success, a New Jersey company, says it has a Martha Stewart line of scrapbook products in the works. (emphasis mine.)

Given that all these social networks are effectively "walled gardens," there's the race to critical mass that confronts them all. The question for OurStory is will its target audience recognize what it is and invest the time and energy into that site vs. other sites targeting women that have just launched or are about to launch?

Here's more about OurStory from CBSNews.com. 

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Update: I was made aware by the comment below of Amiglia (say it 10 times fast), a slick family tree/photos website with a Flickr import capability. This is another site in the same general vein as OurStory and a couple of the sites mentioned in the posts above. And here's an interesting eHub interview with Paul Berry, one of the founders who posted the comment below. It goes into some detail and underscores the absence of family oriented offerings in the social networking world . . . but not for long.

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