La Gacetita, the social network to connect with grandparents

Distance, confinement and the desire to share her best moments with those who are not part of the digital world motivated Daniela Espinola to create The Gacetitaa red social designed to “pamper grandparents”.

The idea of ​​La Gaceta is that the people of the Third Age are updated and informed about the lives of their loved ones and that for professional or personal reasons they are away from them.

Daniela Espinola invested her savings to develop this social network, driven by how difficult it was for her to interact with her grandparents from a distance. Espinola lives in France: “At first, it was my grandparents with whom it was the most difficult for me to maintain distance communication. First the phone, then everyone’s schedules made it too complicated. It was the mail boom and Skype and getting them to use a computer was a challenge. It was very difficult”.

La Gaceta integrates family photos, experiences and messages into a familiar platform, without the massive reach of Instagram o Facebook. Only certain people can have access to La Gacetita, with the intention of creating a printed family album that reaches the hands of the most disconnected from technology: grandparents.

Nostalgia overcame ignorance about technological systems. Daniela organized with her husband of French nationality and with her nuclear family in Mexico to launch this social network in May 2022 with which she intends to connect different generations without generating frustration in the elderly.

How does the La Gacetita app work?

It takes a person in the family to take the initiative to create an album in La Gacetita. The app is downloaded to the phone, a personal profile is created, a family profile and that of the person to whom the publication will be dedicated. Through a code, that person invites family members who want to join the network. The graphical user interface is similar to the mobile version of Instagram and includes functions such as sharing photos accompanied by descriptive texts.

The materials shared in La Gacetita are only visible to members who are part of the family profile.

Throughout a month, each family has the possibility to publish up to 36 photographs. At the end of the period, the application generates a digital gazette, which can be accessed from the mobile phone. “We edited that gazette, printed it and sent it by private parcel to the grandparents.”

The printed Gazette is not free. Subscription prices to receive the printed gazette range from 249 pesos per month to 2,899 for an annual subscription, which includes shipping through private parcel services only in Mexico.

Espinola said that since May 2022 has produced 400 newsletters a month.

ivan.quezada@eleconomista.mx