Site Review: Care Pages.
I have heard it said many times that the best thing to write about is personal experience. This is one of those times that I was wishing I wasn’t. To make a long story short, my daughter has been diagnosed with a life threatening brain stem tumor and is currently receiving treatment. One of the things that was required of my family was to make a trip across the country, because of this trip and that both my and my wife’s families are scattered all over, we knew that keeping in touch with those who were concerned would be difficult. However there is a place for family members to go that allows you to update information on a loved one or yourself and that allows those who care to visit and leave messages of encouragement and even virtual gifts. This site is called Care Pages.
Using the sites own words, care pages is about connecting friends and family to those who are unwell. Started by Eric and Sharon Lanshur, Care Pages was initially meant to keep their friends and family informed about the status of their son Matthew who had been diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. However they soon decided that many people could use a place to share information with loved ones across the globe and started Care Pages. In the five years since its opening Care Pages has allowed more than 2 million people to reach out to their loved ones during a time of great need.
One of the reasons it is so successful as a tool for people to reach out is because it is easy to set up a personal page, and it is easy for people to leave messages of encouragement and hope. After you register you can either visit a page or start one of your own. If you are merely there to visit a loved ones page, leaving them a message of encouragement is as simple as typing it into the provided box and clicking the post button. While this may seem a simple thing, leaving a message that shows you care is comforting to almost anyone.
If, however, you go to care pages looking to start up a page for yourself or a loved one, this is also an extremely easy process. Simply provide the asked for information click a couple times and you are ready to launch your very own Care Page. Once luanched you can update your information freely, post up to 100 photo’s and receive messages and updates from friends and family. While the page itself is fairly cut and dry without to much in the way of personalization, it does create and effective way of staying in touch with the rest of the world without requiring knowledge of web design or purchasing a domain and server space.
In the end I like Care Pages for its ease of use. However the one problem I have is that even just visiting someones page requires that you register. I understand that we don’t want just anyone browsing personal places such as Care Pages, however there are people who would choose not to leave a message simply because they do not wish to register with the site. But if they are not willing to register, do they really care that much anyway? Another small complaint I had was the lack of customization. While I understand the purpose of the page is to create a space for updates and what not, it would be nice if I could personalize my daughters page a bit. Yet something is better than nothing.
