Wednesday, November 21, 2007

23AndMe, and Geni

So I just visited the http://23andme.com site, a personal genome service which
"... is intended to help people understand their inherited traits and to allow them
to compare themselves with friends and family."

At first i thought WHAT?! OK, so I thought it was a gentic based dating site (perhaps that's in their future plans ;) ) but once i looked around i thought - COOL !

It's not cheap at $1k per person but based on the extremely qualified backers and advisors of this site i'd more likely believe it actually works pretty well. I think we'd need educated as to exactly what to take and understand from any results we were given - as well as perhaps some clue as to what to do with it (other than - "i told you you had your fathers stubborness"). Could it be beneficial in education, sports and health?? Even a marginal improvement here can only be a good thing (especially as a father with two kids)!

Now, imagine this.... They do a deal with Geni (one of my fav sites) and over time (as things get slightly cheaper) you get larger percentages of families getting involved. Imagine the kind of searches you could do - even within your own family.

I don't know how far this will extend from the family but clearly their are huge opportunities - with a whole set of new privacy issues to watch over. But clearly this is a direction these kind of services will move into.

Has anyone used the service? If so please let me know.

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