MeWe

Used to be called Sgrouples, now its MeWe offered by the company Sgrouples Inc. On its homepage their motto is "The World's Private Communication Network" and "Join the privacy revolution". Their big thing is privacy and that any and all content that you post is yours and yours only. It's run a lot like a private group in facebook.

A year ago, I created a network account for my immediate and extended family members who are scattered across the globe so that we can keep in touch, share photos, recipes, stories and news. Nobody can access it unless they are invited by another member.

Facebook was just getting a little too toxic with bitter debates on politics and stuff, often pitting family member against family member or some unrelated person threatening a family member. We still have fb to stay in touch with friends and have political talk but the family network I created in MeWe (Sgrouples when I created the account) is a breath of fresh air away away from political garbage and other divisive topics, an "oasis" away from the stress of the world where we can just be a family in peace. We can make our own ground rules.

You can create a private network in MeWe for any venue weather it's for a family, like mine or a business, church or just about any organization. Their free service offerings are quite substantial. "For starters, you get our great basic service sharing photos, videos, documents, chat, discussions, voice messaging, etc., and up to 8GB of storage, free." They make money by offering upgraded services such as increased cloud storage space and in 2015 will be offering more paid services.

I love MeWe......it's different from Facebook but you get used to the format easily. And it's been real great for our family. Check them out, they even have a video tour to watch.