Gold Coast start-up IT firm Cake Media launched on Monday an Australian social networking site named Family HQ. The portal, which used Microsoft's Azure software platform, promises more user privacy compared to current top social networking site Facebook.

Family HQ, run by Queensland couple Jase and Brooke Farmer, has so far signed up 4,616 members from 25 countries during the four-week beta trial period. It has an ambitious goal to have 500,000 members by the end of 2012 by expanding to New Zealand, UK and Ireland in the next six to nine months.

However, it surely will have a lot of catching up to do with Facebook which reached 800 million members last week or even Google+'s estimated 25 million members.

Mr Farmer came up with the idea of Family HQ in 2007 as an alternative to Facebook to contain private family-oriented digital media. Microsoft officially recognised the Web site as part of the Microsoft Partner Network because the tech giant saw Family HQ as a national case study for Windows Azure, Mr Farmer said.

He explained that Family HQ is different from other social media by focusing on privacy concerns and leaving no digital footprints outside the portal. It does not claim copyright ownership of any digital content posted. The catch phrase of Family HQ is "because not everyone wants to share everything with everyone."

"With the identified risks of social networking becoming well known, people are becoming increasingly wary of the potential threats when private information is published online," the Web site explained.

"The site is Australia's only site that enables the ability to create unlimited numbers of groups that remain private from each other, creating a solution for the complicated nature of how we communicate with people in our lives," Mr Farmer told The A Register.

He plans to market the portal as a private communication platform for groups such as sporting clubs, support groups, school classes, day cares and other groups that prefer their site to have more privacy features that Facebook or Google+.

"The lure of sites such as Facebook is very difficult for a child to resist and the consequences of an inexperienced or naïve person sharing private information with the world are equally as hard to predict," Mr Farmer told ChannelNews.

Since the Web site created some buzz because of its platform, an unnamed investor offered to by 10 per cent of Family HQ for A$1 million.

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