[ajaymehta]

You're definitely right that families are currently using email for this, but there is a huge opportunity to use newer technology to keep families even closer in touch. e.g. photos, videos, and up-to-date lists of contact information. Google Groups and email lists don't cut it.

This is actually what we're working on at FamilyLeaf: http://familyleaf.ocm

The younger generations don't use email, so you have to encourage them to share in different ways. But at the same time, you must make it dead simple for older people to share their photos and updates. On FamilyLeaf, we've solved that by using Chute (http://getchute.com) to allow people our age to selectively share from their photos on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, etc.

And older people can just attach photos in a message to [e-mail] - they're automatically emailed to the whole group and collected in your universal family album.