HelloTree is a genealogy website that has been hit by the internet’s equivalent of the ‘El-Nino’ factor. Based out of Canada, the website allows people to create an online family tree and socialise around it with their extended family. It is not specially aimed at India…but three months after launch they started noticing a steady stream of Indian traffic & users. Out of 20k users, about 70% (14k) are Indians. They had no clues how or why this was spreading in India, but they did notice that most of the members were from Tamil Nadu. And when this article profiling them was published in the Mumbai Mirror, the Indian traffic turned into an avalanche (they are now getting 800 Indian members every day, which is awesome!). Surprised but happy at this unexpected Indian bonanza, this has become a focus for the company.

This is what I would refer to as the internet’s equivalent of the “El-Nino” factor. El-Nino (for those who might be unaware) is a global weather phenomenon wherein the warm ocean currents off the coast of South America are supposed to be the cause of the monsoons in the Indian sub-continent. El-Nino is used frequently to explain how a small weather disturbance in one part of the world can lead to dramatic changes in another part. As this case exemplifies, the internet works just like the weather- there are no boundaries and small factors in one part can cause significant changes elsewhere. I have personally experienced this as well. Sometimes it could be just be a bunch of people who take to your service and become the epicenter for propogating it around in their surroundings. You can think of this in terms of the tipping point theory. I guess thats what has happened- on thinking really hard, they might be able to identify the tipping point or cause; its also possible that the exact cause may never be isolated.

In any which case, HelloTree is not complaining. Its founders think that this is probably due to India’s strong family-centric culture and also because many Indian families are dispersed across different countries. The interactive flash family tree allows users to quickly add and invite family members to join by email. As new members join they invite more family and your tree grows collaboratively across geographies and generations. It starts as a simple way to join your family tree but quickly becomes a common space for family to share and stay in touch.

Genealogy websites are actually getting quite popular. Silicon Valley based Geni is possible the biggest of them all, but even in India their are a few options – Indianfamilyroots, Ibibo’s OneFamily, IndianFamilyTree…. there might be others I am not aware of.