Where are you from originally?
It’s a question that prefaces nearly every encounter in the Lowcountry. The answers are as diverse as the people who call the area home: Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kentucky. The reason you’ll barely ever hear the response “right here” is that we are a community largely made up of transplants.
Virtual ways of staying in touch
with far-away family and friends
In the Gullah dialect spoken among our area’s few longtime inhabitants, most of us are ‘cumyahs,’ as opposed to the ‘binyah’s’ who have grown up here.
We come from all points on the map to call this small slice of heaven home, but the distance we put between ourselves and our families can make keeping in touch difficult.
And, sure, the occasional phone call or e-mail get us caught up on the bare bones of our loved ones’ lives, but it’s hardly the same as being there. Being told that a child is crawling doesn’t hold a candle to actually seeing them scoot around the rug. Reading about a loved one’s new home is hardly the same as seeing it room by room.
And while there’s no substitute for being there, a few new options have emerged to help family feel much closer when they're across the globe, for seeing those precious moments as close to first hand as possible.
Skype
In four short years, Skype has grown from the brainchild of a group of Estonian computer programmers to a roughly $600-million-a-year revolution in communications.
As of this writing, Skype boasts more than 480 million users, who enjoy unprecedented free communications with everyone else in the network.
Like popular Voice over Internet Protocal (VoIP) providers, such as Vonage, Skype channels calls over the Internet rather than traditional phone lines, allowing for free voice communication all over the world. Unlike Vonage, however, Skype is completely free for calls to other users.
The greatest feature Skype offers to families, however, isn't just a familiar voice; it's the ability to make video calls, live face-to-face conversations that put you right there in your loved one’s home. Good news for the folks at home gets that much better when you can actually see the looks on their faces.
Sarah Danyi, a Jacksonville, Fla. resident who lived on Hilton Head Island for several years, uses Skype to keep in touch with friends and family in the area.
“I use the video feature on Skype to keep in touch with my sister in Bluffton,” she said. "We both have babies around the same age, and it's fun to let them see each other."
If you’re not looking to get bogged down by a laptop, Skype also is available for a variety of mobile devices, including the iPhone.
"It's just a cool way to keep in touch with people," Danyi said.
Family blogs
For the more technically savvy, a family blog can be the perfect way to share updates, photos and even video with family all over the world.
Within families, good news travels fast. By setting up a family Web page, you can spread good news in an instant. Each family member can post their own photos, news and updates to the site.
Matt Brodie, who grew up on Hilton Head Island and now lives in Columbia, started brodieblog.com as a way to keep in touch with his family in the Lowcountry and across the country.
"We usually posted family pictures to Google's Picasa and sent out e-mails to everyone we could think of telling them to go look at the new pictures," Brodie said. "Unfortunately, we didn't have everyone's e-mails and we'd taken still photos, videos, and had a funny story or two to share, which meant an e-mail with the stories and link to Picasa and another to Youtube. That's when I decided the best way to share everything was in one central location."
He started his Web site in June of 2009. He and his wife, Lauren, split posting duties, but the site also links to photo galleries of extended family members across the globe.
"We have family and friends all over the world that regularly look at our blog," Brodie said. "My wife has two brothers: one in New York and one in Europe. We also have family in Florence, Hilton Head, Oregon, Ohio, New York and California that like to look in on us and see how we are doing. The cool thing is that our family and our families' friends have started really looking forward to read the new blog entries."
And the site was a snap to set up. Though his work required some Web design, Brodie was looking for a quick and easy way set up the family Web site rather than working from scratch. What he found was www.squarespace.com.
"Literally, 10 minutes after having the idea I had the site up and running," Brodie said. "We are also excited because in the next few weeks they should be releasing the squarespace iPhone app that will let us update everything easily from our iPhones."
The basic package for a squarespace site run $8 a month, but for the features he needed for his blog, Brodie opted for the $14 package. Find out more at www.squarespace.com.
However, there are free blog services online that offer easy set-up and attractive design templates:
Are you or a family member computer challenged? Click here or download Lowcountry Child's Facebook 101 for a step-by-step lesson on this sometimes-confusing social network.
Since its humble beginnings as a way for college students to exchange party photos, Facebook has evolved into the top destination for social networking.
Unlike other social networking sites, such as Myspace and Friendster, Facebook has accumulated a user base that includes all ages. That means grandma is free to get in on the fun, giving her a unique chance to catch up with the family.
To see just a hint of facebook’s versatility, witness the following post on my page:
Barry Kaufman
Quick, everyone share some way you use facebook to keep in touch with family
Sasha McGinn Sweeney
We use it to share pictures of the kids with grandparents and other family.
Alexandria Czaruk Clark
I use face book for that as well as keeping up with friends who don't live close enough to visit everyday! Communication I think is the biggest key tool for facebook!
Aimey Adamson
I use it to keep in touch with my amazing friends on the other side of the pond! Sharing photos and what we're all up to! I'm reading a book on facebook too, and we use the 'events' to organize parties!
Shanna Marie
My brother is in Guam and this is the only way we can talk because of time zone differences. Also, we post pictures to keep up to date.
Robert C. Holquist
Use facebook IM to book flights for spouse who was in the way of Hurricane Rick. She was on IM in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, yesterday while I talked on phone to airline. It worked great.
Meg Culler Decker
sharing pictures, keeping up with friends, easier than e-mail, setting up get-togethers, wasting time at work...oh wait, I NEVER do that :)
With the variety of photo and video sharing Facebook offers, there are several way to stay in touch, but that's just scratching the surface.
Beyond simply sharing memories with one another's pages, users can even create a 'group' page on facebook for their family; share videos and photos in one central spot, plus create special 'events' for birthdays, family reunions and more; there's even room for discussion boards for everyone to chew the fat with the family.
Barry Kaufman is a humor columnist and reporter for Bluffton Today and the co-creator of www.literocracy.net, an online social networking site for aspiring writers (currently in the beta stages). He lives in Bluffton with his wife and two children.
