Good post, Chris. When you get people over the threshold to start exlporing social media they often get hooked.

I have two suggestions to add to your list:

* As Christmas is very much a family holiday a “genealogy 2.0″ site would be of interest. Personally I use geni.com the (and have explored a few others). Get your family to contribute to the family tree. Add pictures and information. Invite your relatives. And encourage them to invite their families (which might not be part of “your” family if you talk about eg your cousin’s in-laws etc). It is really fun to see the family social network expand. (and Chris, if you’re on Geni.com, feel free to add me as “family friend” if applicable)

* During christmas my wife has worked on a school assignment together with a co-student. This time I managed to get them to explore and use Google Docs instead of sending numerous copies of Word-documents back and forth. Worked well (even if they did teh final editing in word to get all the formatting features).
So, for the relatives that are attending school or otherwise do joint writing – point them to Google Docs or a similar service.

I made a Christmas memories video with my buddy and collaborator. Good times.

http://www.goodcommitment.tv/2007/12/24/christmas-memories/

Happy Holidays!

Last year I put together a group blog for my wife and her close-knit group of high school friends. At their annual Christmas get-together, I unveiled it, showed them all how it worked, etc. One of the young ladies is a high school guidance counselor who was very leery of being involved because of the horror stories of principals finding questionable personal information online about teachers and firing them. Unfortunately, she declined to participate and asked to be removed from the pictures, etc.

The lesson I learned is that there will perhaps need to be some educating you’ll have to do. Certainly Chris’s tips point in that direction, but be prepared for a little tech-tard anxiety from the folks you’re giving the gifts too. Even the non-gadget gifts may need some coaching.

For the record, the blog went over famously with the rest and is still going today, connecting everyone with the three friends who now live out of town, and vice-versa.

Happy Holidays all!