Wanted: A family email solution
My daughter got an email address recently. She's our oldest child and it's the first time someone other than my wife and I have needed an email address.
Here's the thing about email addresses: We often keep them for a really long time. I've had my main email address since 2000. My work address is the same email address I had in 1993. (I work at my alma mater so my current work email address is the same as my student email address.) Others change frequently. I've had numerous work email addresses that ceased to exist when I changed jobs.
I got my daughter an email address through a commonly used email service and she'll probably have that email address for a long time. In fact, until she goes to college, I imagine that will be her email address.
The more I think about it, though, I'd really love to have something like Google Apps for Business... but for families.
A Google Apps for Family (or something similar from someone else) could be a family email service that allows you to use a custom domain name. It'd have some parental controls and would be easy to manage. But it could solve a bunch of other family issues, too. Just off the top of my head:
- Family Calendar
- Synced Shopping List
- Photo Sharing
- Family Blog
- Document Sharing
I'd happily pay for a single service that could help me manage my family's chaos.
I can use any number of services to host the email. And other apps can cover the other needs. But as the parent/administrator, I want something easy to manage and a single, cohesive solution would be so much easier.
My oldest child just got email. I hope by the time my youngest is ready for email*, there's a better solution.
*Assuming people still use email, but that's another blog post all together.