A social network for babies

<< If you could fix Firefox or IE what would you do? | Home | Social quickies for Saturday March 1 >>

A social network for babies - seriously

Saturday, March 01, 2008 10:55 AM | Social Social Media Social Networking

totspot.com

totspot (will be open for private beta soon) targets new mom's who can create profiles for themselves and their babies. Word has it that the profile pages will be private (member only or friends only). Interested mom's can signup for the private beta here.

From the totspot blog

Tonight we semi-officially-sorta launch the TotSpot Blog.

To date, we’ve been posting here for the small audience of, well, ourselves. With our stage-fright in check, we’ve decided to pull back the curtain and tell a few friends about it. You’re probably one of them. Welcome.

So what can you expect from the TotSpot Blog? It’s our only blog for now, so there will be a few different types of posts:

Product Stuff. We’ll write about how the product is coming along, highlight features you may have not noticed and announce new ones as we launch them. We’ll also ask for your thoughts every now and then about how we can make TotSpot work better for you.

Baby Stuff. What’s going on in the world of parenting? We’ll talk about events and conferences we’re attending, mommies and daddies we’re meeting, and baby products we’re liking.

Web Stuff. OK, so we’re not the first website in the world. There are tons of other established players and startups in our field and others that we have thoughts about; we’ll share them with you.

Techie Stuff. What makes TotSpot work? We think we’ve done some innovative things technically, so we’ll have occasional posts from our technical gurus telling you about what’s under the hood. Look forward to a specialized
Developers Blog coming soon.
Thanks for being here as we take our first steps. We’re looking forward to your first words!

I'm not sure how well this will take off, but I do wish totspot much luck with this very interesting idea for a social network. I believe there is a lot of room for niche social networks.

As always, I enjoy reading and responding to your comments!

6 Comments

Comments

Posted by Ryan Lopez on 3/2/2008 10:01 AM: I think the growth will be in the use of smaller, more focused, niche social networks that cater to a particular interest, hobby or vocation. These smaller sites will allow like-minded individuals and groups to connect, exchange ideas and receive genuine and useful support.

These kinds of sites will also be attractive to advertisers as they get targeted demographics to spend their online advertising budgets on.

Thanks to sites such as ning, anyone can start a niche social network about anything. There's also a search engine to help find niche social networks, http://findasocialnetwork.com that lists thousands of networks for a whole range of subjects.
Posted by Allen on 3/2/2008 10:02 AM: Hi Ryan,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I will be sure to to take a look at the social search engine as well.
Posted by BabySpot.com on 3/3/2008 1:24 AM: Allen,

Great blog!!! My name is Zameer Upadhya and I am the Co-Founder and CEO of http://www.babyspot.com. We are a social networking and informational tool for new parents to connect. Totspot looks like a great site, however, we are in the same space and launched in December 2007. Our site has been live since then and was started because my co-founder, James Rivera, wanted to share pictures and videos of his son, Danny, in a safe and secure manner. Enclosed below is a press release regarding our site and our company story. We hope that you can take a look at our site and we would welcome the chance to chat with you. Love your blog!!

Presenting the Youngest Social Networking Profiles…Ever.

Highly successful http://www.babyspot.com emerges to revolutionize the way families and parents interact with one another. Parents create profiles for their children that allow the world to watch them grow each day. The site offers blogs, videos, pictures, comment features, and parenting-based content.

Miami, FL (PRWeb) Jan. 21, 2008 - With the birth of a child came the birth of one of the Internet’s greatest ideas. Though the Internet now offers a substantial number of social networking sites, none exist like the one created by co-founders James Rivera and Zameer Upadhya.

Shortly after welcoming their first child Danny into the world, James and Monica Rivera became bombarded with requests for news, pictures and videos of their little bundle of joy. Seeking to quell the mob that demanded to see the new family member, the fresh-faced parents logged onto the Internet and started posting pictures here and there and sending scattered emails that were sometimes filtered out by Spam-screeners. Frustrated by their need to act as technical support for the newborn’s various online profiles and photo sites, the parents turned to long-time friend Zameer who, as it turns out, was experiencing equal chagrin at how challenging it had become to try and receive news about his distant baby-cousins. Together, they hatched a plan to create an entirely new breed of social networking site that would forever change the lives of parents the world over.

They created Babyspot.com, a site that allows users—specifically parents—to create profiles that give them the ability to post news and pictures of their children for fellow parents and family members to see. The prevailing sentiment is that not everyone can completely appreciate the sublime joy of becoming a parent, but Babyspot.com brings together the people who do.

Delving into the site, users can see the site offers as many (if not more) features as most social profile sites. With the ability to write biographies and blogs, and update pictures and videos, parents can create an immersing baby-centric experience for the viewing pleasure of their families and friends. The simplicity of the site eliminates the need for tired newborn parents to spend what little energy they have left bouncing from site to site and writing countless emails to relatives, over and over. The site is very user-friendly, and has thus far been incredibly successful at keeping families in touch and creating friendships between parents living cities and countries apart. The creators of the site even understood that not all parents want the world to see their children, so they added an option that allows you to block your child’s profile from anyone who was not personally invited to view it.

Just like watching their own child learn and become successful, the Riveras will be able to guide their website to a healthy future adulthood. With the recent explosion in popularity of networking sites, one thing is for certain: it’s worth keeping an eye on Babyspot.com to see what it’ll be when it grows up.
Posted by Allen on 3/3/2008 4:00 AM: Hi Zameer,
Thanks for stopping by. You do know that I have a contact form, it probably would have been better for this type of communication. Press releases just don't do that well as blog comments.
Posted by Michael Broukhim on 3/13/2008 1:00 PM: Thanks Allen for the post!

You are correct; by default, all pages on TotSpot will be private (only for those you invite to see). There will be options to have more public pages for those with a more exhibitionist bend. We'll be posting our '3 TotSpot promises' regarding privacy, data portability, etc. on our blog in the next few days. We hope that answers a lot questions on these issues.

And, we hope you're right about room for niche social networks!

Thanks again,
Michael
Posted by allen on 3/13/2008 1:01 PM: Hi Michael,
Good luck with totspot!