Hot off DEMO Launch, AboutOne Changes the Way Families Communicate, for Good

AUSTIN, Texas and MALVERN, Pa., March 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- (SXSW 2011) -- AboutOne, a secure online family management system that makes it easier for families to manage daily life, today announced a hosting of new features at SXSW® Interactive, part of the annual music, film, and interactive conference and festival that attracts the world's top web creators and entrepreneurs.

Now nearing 5,000 members after only 15 weeks in beta, and just off the heels of a successful public launch at DEMO, AboutOne will today unveil new features at SXSW in Austin, TX. More than a digital filing cabinet, AboutOne makes information work in the moment for families - it carries the burden of saving essential family information so that 82.8 million busy moms in the US (according to a 2008 US Census Bureau study) can devote more time to what really matters in their lives.

AboutOne enables people to access important household information anytime—at home or away, from any web-enabled device and offers time-saving features like APIs and wizards that make it possible to quickly enter information with a phone, scanner, or computer, within the regular flow of the day. The service is designed specifically for families—currently a market of 173 million(1). After an initial focus on providing the service to Millennial Moms (Gen Y), AboutOne has expanded to serve caregivers, teenagers applying to college, military families and corporate customers.

New AboutOne features Unveiled at SXSW

At SXSW, AboutOne will unveil new features that create baby books, greeting cards and invitations and manage family vehicle records and a host of other household management report and summary capabilities, including:

• A way to automatically create hard copy baby books within seconds from an AboutOne digital scrapbook.
• A feature that lets paper greeting cards and invitations literally mail themselves to friends and family of your choice.
• Already possible with home maintenance and improvement records, a new feature to track information associated with car ownership such as vehicle purchase, registration, service, maintenance, insurance, warranty and dealer papers and information.
• The ability to auto-magically produce family newsletters, babysitter instructions, home maintenance/capital gains summaries, education reports for college applications, and more.

The Story behind AboutOne

AboutOne's founder and CEO, Joanne Lang, understands first-hand the need for a web-based service that tracks and organizes household information. Joanne is the mother of four young boys and a former SAP executive who experienced the challenges of managing family life. As part of SAP's original cloud technology team, she'd seen how web-based platforms enabled businesses to eliminate mundane tasks and gain new levels of efficiency, and wanted to bring those same benefits to families and busy moms.

Joanne decided to develop AboutOne after several personal experiences where she needed information she didn't have instant access to. In one instance, Joanne's son had to be taken to the hospital for a medical emergency. At the time, she was so distraught that she couldn't remember his birthdate, let alone provide a list of his current medications to the medical team. All she had with her were her keys and her phone. On another occasion, she had to report the capital gains on the sale of her house, but hadn't kept track of the home improvement information necessary to minimize her tax bill, and no longer had any of the necessary documentation to complete her tax forms. Finally, Joanne was a frequent business traveler, and often found herself without access to information stored in documents at home while she was on the road.

With these experiences in mind, Joanne set out to create a cloud service that blends the power of business computing tools with the fun, user-friendly nature of popular social media apps.  With AboutOne, she created a service that requires no technical proficiency to install and run; expertly handles data security so that users don't have to; provides a centralized location from which to manage family information; provides fast and convenient data entry via mobile device and scanners; and seamlessly formats and adds to information so it's useful in the future.

You can meet Joanne and learn more about AboutOne at SXSW booth #245.

To sign up, visit www.aboutone.com.

(1)  According to combined market numbers given by the US Census Bureau (82.8 million moms), National Center for Education Statistics (18.2 million teens applying to college), US Department of Defense (1.5 million Active Duty Military personnel and 858,000 Reserve personnel) and the National Alliance for Caregiving (65.7 million caregivers).

SOURCE AboutOne.com