2009-04-02 Barack Obama and I: We’re related!

We’re Related

2009 April 1

Yesterday, That’s 2009 April 1, many users of the We’re Related application FaceBook received this message:

Hi,

Barack Obama (Washington, DC) has confirmed you as his fourth cousin once removed on We’re Related.

Follow this link to see how you are related:
http://apps.facebook.com/we_r_related/?page=profile&fid=0U812&ref=fl.30

We’re Related Team

Not all users of We’re Related received that email. I did not receive it because I had used FaceBook controls to modify the permissions for We’re Related, and it had no permission to email me. The We’re Related application has never been shy about using FaceBook alerts, but this particular message was only sent out as an email.

FaceBook settings: We're Related email

spoof genealogy

The link is the same for everyone. When you follow the link, you arrive at a page with a partial family tree on it, in which you are the fourth cousin once removed of Barack Hussein Obama II.

Barack Obama: Fourth Cousin Once Removed

privacy feature

Notice how it does not show my parents or grandparents, but opts to keep their name private. Guess it is just a small We’re Related programming defect. This privacy thingy is a new feature for sure, but apparently rushed out of the door without proper testing. I applaud FamilyLink for introducing privacy features, but sure wish they had learned the value of testing by now. Surely I should be allowed to view my own parents and grandparents?

relationship feature

I think this relationship feature, where it tells and shows you how you are related to others in the same tree is new too. This is a nice feature, that even many desktop applications do not match. Good old PAF has this feature, but it does not look half as good.

April Fool

Alas, it is all an April Fool. We’re Related does not have these features and although I am most surely in some way related to Barack Obama, I am pretty sure that the closest shared ancestor is more than a dozen generations back, and I am not likely to ever document a relationship.

how

The link is the same for everyone, but you need to be logged into FaceBook to view the page, which then shows your FaceBook user name and avatar in the predetermined spot.

click

If you click anywhere on the page, you’ll get an admission that it all fake, a beg for a five-star review, and the suggestion to play a genealogy prank on your family - which will result in them receiving a message from We’re Related.

We're Related April Fool

inaccurate

This April Fool created a small buzz on Twitter. One tweet that stood out was the one by Noah Tutak, Vice President of Communications at competitor geni.com.

2009-04-01 23:31 tutak Thanks to Geni, I know that President Barack Obama is my 19th cousin 8 times removed! http://www.geni.com

That seems somewhat sour, but he was not the only one to comment that he knew his actual relationship to Barack Obama. Several genealogist who have ancestors in common with Obama have blogged about that in the past and were commenting upon the inaccuracy of the We’re Related information.

alienating

Some genealogists have expressed disappointment about a genealogy company deliberately posting inaccurate information. That the genealogy is not just unsourced but provably wrong is the weakest part of this particular April Fool and why it may have been a bad brainbreeze to go forward with it.

Although We’re Related is not exactly aimed at serious genealogists, this April Fool seems to have been pushed forward without even considering about how they might react. It now seems that quite a few are not thrilled by FamilyLink forever destroying the credibility of all the research they did that shows they are say 10th cousin twice removed.

Thanks to FamilyLink, almost no one will ever take them seriously anymore, they are likely to forever hear the response that they were taken in by an April Fool instead - haven’t they figured that out yet? - without getting a chance to show their research. That ongoing experience will not turn those genealogists into ambassadors of FamilyLink, but alienate them instead.

impersonating the president

This particular mass mail has not only irked some genealogist. It has also drawn attention from the FBI, which is already taking steps towards prosecuting Jason McGowan, Chief Social Officer at FamilyLink, now positively identified as the spam king behind this massive mail scam that pretends to originate with Barack Obama. The exact nature of the complaints he will face are still being determined, but certainly include abusing Barack Obama’s good name for commercial purposes as well as some 19 million counts of impersonating the president of the United States of America, each and every one of them separately punishable as a federal crime bordering on treason. The potential collective penalty for these crimes is enormous. A spokesperson for the FBI confirmed that Mr McGowan may indeed soon be facing the longest prison term in the history of mankind. Special Agents are currently determining the exact number of deceptive emails he send out, and this may take a while, but it is expected that the suspect, currently still at large, will be arrested and brought to trial within a year, before 2010 April 1.

update

2009-04-02 instant update

FamilyLink put out a press release, and the World Vital Records blog has two entries about the April Fool. FamilyLink seems busy congratulating itself on the attention and traffic they generated, but geneabloggers are not all happy.

failure

Geneablogger Randy Seaver, whose screenshots FamilyLink used in one of those blog posts, is not much amused. He just wrote another blog entry in which he notes that in spite of numerous promises, there is still no useful GEDCOM upload capability, wonders can I get reimbursed for my lost time?, calculates that there are just six relations per user, and concludes thus:

Genealogists want programs and applications that work well, don’t cause frustration, [let us] upload GEDCOM files, and enable us to share our work with our extended family.

If it won’t work well, what good is it? First impressions linger. Any company that provides a seemingly defective product will engender harsh feelings from the users of the product. Or be ignored. Or bashed.

FamilyLink.com had a great opportunity to demonstrate the usefulness and versatility of the We’re Related application - but it failed, IMHO. They should have "fixed it" before they showed it off.

I heartily agree with the idea that FamilyLink should make sure their product works well before promoting it so vigorously. FamilyLink should spend its resources making sure products work well, not spend it promoting defective ones.
Even if this particular April Fool is a good idea, FamilyLink should still have canned it until such time that their application is worth promoting.

damage

The FamilyLink press release tries to paint this April Fool as a marketing success. I think it is somewhat funny, but wonder whether it may turn out to be their worst marketing blunder yet, as it sours existing and hinders desired relationships with genealogy organisations that like to be perceived as serious and quality-oriented. That is hard to overcome damage to the company’s network, reputation and growth potential.

This stunt is sure to attract a lot of new users, but those new users will have a less than satisfactory experience with the product. If they remain interested in genealogy, they are likely to switch to a competing product, and forever think of FamilyLink as an me-too company peddling low-quality genealogy applications, with no real interest in anything but attention-grabbing stunts for quick advertising profits. That is long-lasting damage to the brand.