So I have been hearing little bits and pieces about AboutOne for a while now. At first, I had no idea what it was. Then I knew it was an organizer type thing but I still did not go look. Finally, I have gone and looked and this is beyond what I was thinking it was.
In a nutshell – it is a place for you to keep EVERYTHING in one place that you need to manage your family.
Things to keep track of in your AboutOne account:
- Contacts
You can import these from other sources even to make it simple. An interesting note is that you can mark someone as deceased even. Good for genealogy tracking I suppose. - Medical Information
Great to have info handy and in one place. I am great about saving things, but not filing them. With AboutOne I will be able to scan in a medical receipt, test results, prescription info, etc. and immediately connect it to the right person. If we have to go to the ER (knock on wood) I can use the AboutOne app to pull up that info easily too. I am thinking that this is not only good for yourself and kids, but for those with aging parents it would be a good idea to keep their info as well. - Possessions
This is great for insurance purposes, warranty information, and collections! - Photos
Nice to be able to keep them in one place - Education
It is nice to have this information together for if you need a resume. Also, if you (or family member) does a lot of continuing education type classes this is a great place to keep track of everything that you have done. You can scan class receipts and certificates even.
The Family Calendar is what I am most looking forward to. It is coming soon – remember AboutOne is still in beta so it is a work in progress. This will allow you to share a calendar with your family in one spot that all can access. Again, I know that there are other ways to do this right now, but it’s the combination of this along with all the other features that I am really digging. It’s not just one thing here, another thing there – it will all be in one single spot for me to access easily.
The app is for Windows Phones right now and it really works so well with the Windows Phone interface. I am not sure if they will be developing apps for iPhones and Android devices (probably). While I do love my iPhone and Android devices, the ease of use of the Windows Phone is very attractive to me. I actually think that within the next couple of years more people will have Windows Phones than other phone operating systems. I am curious to see if the web format of AboutOne changes more to match that of the Windows Phone app and the upcoming Windows 8 operating system as time goes on.
Security was one of the first things I was wondering about with AboutOne. They have bank-level security going already – I love that! There are several layers to the security you can read about here. One of the things I learned a lot about as an ambassador for kIDSure was different security measures, so I was really pleased to see so many of the things I had learned being put into action here on AboutOne. Plus I love that they say “AboutOne is Serious About Protecting Your Nuts” – just had to laugh at that. They also do backups every hour – yet another layer of protection for their members.
So plenty of good things coming for AboutOne. It is definitely something to watch and see how it develops. As I mentioned earlier, if you sign up now during beta you will end up getting a free year of the premium service as well. That’s a good deal and it also gives you a chance to really build up your information slowly as they roll out new features.
What kinds of things would you like to see added to AboutOne?
Disclosure: I am being compensated for my honest review of the AboutOne service and app. As I said, it is still in beta, so my thoughts are based on what is available as of May 14, 2012. Opinions are my own.
© 2012, Robyn Wright. All rights reserved.
