Welcome to Kin, the private social media space for families
During our new normal, as we spend more time at home, isolated from friends and extended family, it’s becoming even more clear what is truly important. A recent study by Brandwatch Consumer Research found that instead of usual new year’s resolutions of losing weight or drinking less, the number one resolution mentioned across social media platforms was seeing friends and family more in 2021.
Now more than ever, nurturing family bonds in small ways on a daily basis is a lifeline for all of us — no matter what generation we’re in. Whether it’s sharing a video of baby’s first steps, nattering away on a group text or the weekly video call with the whole extended family, we are more reliant on apps to stay connected to our loved ones. In a survey conducted by the Global Web Index, 57 percent of respondents in the US and UK said using social media has made them feel less lonely. Though apps and social media can be convenient for long-distance or socially distant bonding, it’s also troubling when we find out that all our data — all our photos, memories and contacts — are up for sale to the highest bidder.
As proud parents, it’s a natural instinct to want to share every special moment of our little ones’ lives with our family and friends. Not too long ago, many parents didn’t think posting photos of their kids on Facebook or Whatsapp was much different than pulling out a brag book of photos at a restaurant or family dinner. Your social media accounts used to be a small contained audience of your nearest and dearest, plus a random smattering of friends from uni, work colleagues, and acquaintances who probably put your profile on snooze when too many pics of Junior starting populating their feed.
Protecting Your Family’s Digital Footprint
But as recent privacy policy changes with Whatsapp show, we’re all becoming increasingly aware of our and our children’s digital footprint and losing control over our photos and data. The week Whatsapp announced a change in terms and conditions, downloads fell by 2 million while private messaging apps Signal and Telegram scored 17.8 million and 15.7 million new users respectively. It’s a natural progression of the Whatsapp awakening that consumers will be increasingly cautious about where they upload their most precious photos and data, hopefully before too much damage is done by their current social accounts.
A report conducted by the Children’s Commissioner for England found by the age of 13, parents had shared an average of 1300 photos of their kids online. A fifth of parents on Facebook have public profiles and over half of parents on Facebook are friends with people they don’t know. There’s two main issues to contend with — the first being consent — as your children get older, how will they feel about potentially embarrassing childhood photos of them floating around the web, photos that could come up in search or be screen-grabbed by anyone with access to them?
The second issue is online identity theft and fraud. Barclays has projected by the year 2030, “sharenting”, sharing a child’s photos and personal information online, will account for ⅔ of identity fraud online. It’s vital for parents to be aware of what information they are putting online in public. Over time, the collection of posted photos which seem innocuous enough, may contain key details of your child’s identity — names, ages, birthdays, pet’s names, their mother’s maiden name, school, favourite sports teams — which can be easily harnessed to hack passwords and apply for fraudulent loans and credit cards in your child’s name. Their credit can take a serious hit before they’re even old enough to have a lemonade stand.
A Private Media Space Centred Around the Members, Not Advertisers
There’s an old adage, if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. As ad-targeting becomes even more sophisticated and more stories of data being sold hit the news, consumers have an increasing distrust in social media networks in general, there is a growing appetite for a subscription private media space that is more centred around the user, and not the advertiser.
Kin provides an ad-free, secure and private place for families and loved ones to find sanctuary from the otherwise cluttered and invasive environments where they traditionally share moments and memories. It’s a private, safe space whose goal is to bring families closer together — a welcome alternative to Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook and the plethora of media storage solutions that aren’t suitable for day-to-day family media sharing. There’s no heavily photoshopped influencers, no #sponsored posts, no “hey hun” messages from uni friends trying to rope you into multi-level marketing schemes, no newsfeed full of fake news stories trying to inflame you and sway your vote.
An authentic space filled with your nearest and dearest, where you can come as you are. The digital equivalent of flopping on your parents’ couch in your favourite sweats. You don’t have to “curate” your feed or use 10 filters before you post a photo. Log on and watch a video of your niece’s first steps, create a future message video for your toddler daughter to open on her 16th birthday, upload your latest baby bath time photos without worrying where they’ll end up.
The Origins of Kin
We created Kin with a simple purpose in mind: to bring families and loved ones closer together. We wanted to provide an alternative to the predominant social media and messaging platforms that cater to hyper-connectivity and marketing; we wanted to create a place for the more precious moments and interactions between loved ones. A private media space built by families, for families. Not for advertisers. Imagine that.
My co-founder Matt Blom and I started Kin back in the pre-Covid days of September 2019. Little did we know back then how much the demand would increase for digital social interactions and how vital a safe, private digital platform would become.
The idea for Kin sprung from what is now a common question. I was writing an email to my then two-year-old son Tristan to open in the future, when I called Matt to ask him, “Is there an app for this?” This prompted the idea that there was a gap in the market for a private media space to make bonding as a family easier. Kin provides families with a secure and uninterrupted space to share moments and memories together, and uniquely, allows for messages to be sent that can only be opened in the future. One of our key tenets had to be to keep Kin completely ad-free, and to assure our members their data will never be sold for marketing purposes.
We also wanted Kin to allow for family members to be remembered after they pass away. In December 2020, less than a month before Kin launched, my father, Robert, sadly passed away. I wanted to honour him and keep his memory alive with photos, videos and family stories so Robert became Kin’s first Memorial Account, helping me and my family to preserve and share his memory. It’s important to me to keep my dad’s legacy alive, so my son Tristan can grow up seeing what kind of man he was and what he meant to our family.
Luckily Matt and I weren’t the only ones to see the value in a private media space for families. We found some investors who felt the same and after raising over $3.2M in our first rounds of funding, we are delighted to announce that Kin launched in January 2021 in the UK in the App store and on Google Play.
Go on Then, Give it a Go
We’re pretty proud of the private media space we’ve created, but don’t take our word for it. Please try it for yourself — invite your family, create a few Future Messages and let us know what you think — the good, the not-so-good and any features you’d love to see. We’d love for you to help us shape the future of private media for families.
