TotSpot, the site that we described as a “social network for babies”, has launched in public beta. The site gives parents a way to securely share pictures, videos, and important milestones of their children with selected friends and family.
The term “social network” isn’t really appropriate for TotSpot – this isn’t a place for parents to connect with other people. Instead, it’s meant to help parents share updates regarding their children with the people they know. The site’s founders recognize how protective most parents are of their children, and have implemented privacy settings to ensure that their baby’s profiles are secure. Only invited friends and family members are allowed to view profiles, and parents can actually see who has visited their profile in the past week – a feature that would be creepy on any other site, but is perfectly reasonable here.
Beyond the sharing features, the site gives parents a way to document the growth and accomplishments of their child. Parents can list their child’s favorite things, dates and descriptions for milestones, and keep track of a child’s size using a growth chart. Everything is time stamped, which allows TotSpot to generate an Ad-Libesque story of a child’s life.
Best of all, TotSpot will let parents order physical baby books containing their photos, their mile stones, journal entries, and growth charts. These won’t be available until later this summer, but TotSpot’s founders say that they should be significantly more personalized than the traditional baby books found in retail stores.
TotSpot has created a unique (and potentially lucrative) niche for themselves. The site is very easy to use, and has a simple interface that will appeal to even the least tech-savy parents. That said, they’ll see competition from a plethora of other baby sites that offer similar features, including BabySpot, Bundlo, and Parentricity.
i think i just threw in my mouth a little bit.
This is a very small niche they are aiming at but the good thing is that as of now there isnt really any competition.
*threw up
@ 1/3: Is that your reaction, or your baby’s activity stream…
This sounds very similar to Lil’Grams (http://www.lilgrams.com/) which is set to launch in June. I know the team behind Lil’Grams and have seen the site in action; I think their interface is much more elegant in design.
Perfect, now we have a ToddlerBook. Hopefully there’ll be an api that automatically nudges us over gently to FaceBook (or whatever is in style then) when we are 13. Now what’s missing is GrannyBook for the past 50 and below 100 age range and our lives will be perfectly captured online.
Just kidding. Best of luck to TotSpot
Ender had his first appointment with a therapist today, because mommy and daddy were too busy creating activity streams on the computer instead of spending time with their son…
I wouldn’t say they have no competition – we just announced that Lil’Grams will begin its beta later this month.
While this seems like a small niche, it’s a passionate and valuable one which is what makes it so interesting.
Feel free to ping us if you want to know more.
this may be a stupid question, but if security is the keyword here, what is the difference between this and a private set of pictures/videos in flickr?
Do any other parents out there have this problem: My wife and I both want to share photos of our kids on facebook. We don’t want to: 1) store 2 copies, obviously, 2) create a group that our frineds need to join 3) require each of our facebook friends to be friends of our spouse. I’d like to be able to create a photo area and say that all of my wife’s friends can access it (but not the public).
Any 3rd party website doesn’t really work since we want it to be seen on facebook, with access control based on my and my wife’s friends.
The only thing I can think of is to put it on a 3rd party site with a password, and my wife and I put the URL and password on our profiles for our friends to see. I’d like something a little simpler, right on facebook.
Anyone else have this quandary? Anyone know if the facebook app infrastruture could support this type of access control (”let all friends of facebook user X and all frinds of mine see this content”).
Thanks,
Shawn
Oh excellent, now instead of the embarrassment of your girlfriend seeing your baby pictures when she visits your parents, today’s children can look forward to having all their friends, all their enemies, all their colleagues and the rest of the entire world see them. Not to mention exactly how long it took you to learn to stop s—ing yourself, how long you were taking baths with your sister, all those hilarious questions you asked your parents when you were 3…
I think I’m starting to appreciate the full horror of Fred Wilson’s prediction that every single person on the planet will have their experiences broadcast over the Internet.
Next time perhaps TechCrunch will post an article about some Dog-Facebook social networking site for dog owners somewhere. Jesus, has Civilization gone mad? This is pure vain ( = social networking).
Your three foot tall 39 pound baby creeps me out.
I’m botcotting until they publish an API and adopt data portability standards.
Until then, I’ll just twitter everytime the kid pukes.
Falafulu: Believe it or not, there’s an entire genre. Apparently Dogster.com has over 180,000 “members”. http://www.blog...pl?bblog=715062
Both animals and babies may be unable to control their personal data, but at least animals always remain animals and never care about what their owners do with it. Babies aren’t so lucky.
Steve: I think you’ll be happy to read this, then.
For those that are whining about this post: don’t like it, don’t eat it and please, /j #care.
This site seems really nice to parents that want to have some privacy but at the same time an easy way to share their babies experience with friends and family. No overcomplicated privacy settings, no abusive ToS, no excessive eye candy. Almost a K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) example.
Now let’s see if it delivers what it promises.
TotSpot – nice site, been playing with it during the beta, but just don’t have the time to spend keeping it updated. My wife and I update our “blog” almost daily with pics/stories, all from our phones.
Shawn – there might be an option to use Flickr for your pics sharing via Facebook, but then again the only pics that will display on FB are the ones that are labeled as public…..You can select the “import” link as part of your Mini-Feed and then add Flickr in there. My wife and I both did this and any new pics either of us upload to Flickr shows up in both our FB profiles. Good Luck!
Sam (11): I think that’s a very fair point. Our hope (and our experience has been) is that parents will use discretion and focus more on the fun and adoring rather than the embarrassing. The truth is, there is not much we can do otherwise (but this is already the case with blogs, flickr, etc.) Eventually, you just have to faith in parents’ good judgment and we do.
I would note one more thing: If for whatever reason, a user ever wants to take anything down / away from TotSpot, they will be able to. The pages are private, non-indexable, and all content always belongs “100%” to the user.
Isn’t this like http://Kidmondo.com which is already live? IMO it has the best user experience of the lot and was actually built by parents.
This is nuts. I tried to sign up for my daughter and it is forcing me to add a middle name that is not there for my daughter. What a joke.
Kinzin.com is also a private family website that lets you share photos and stories with friends and family. I learned a bit more about them at a Launch Party Vancouver event last January.
@10, They also have a Facebook app that lets you share your updates with users on/off Facebook.
I don’t have kids so this site isn’t of any interest to me, but I did want to comment on the design. The only thing I could see was the screenshot you posted, but as a fellow web designer I really appreciate very clean layouts and design. This site looks REALLY nice, so props to the designer.
Just a word of appreciation for the Totspot guys. They immediately contacted me personally and assured me that they will fix this issue. I appreciate this kinda attitude in the startups.
I have a feeling most of the “WTF” comments are coming from people who don’t have kids. The idea is appealing to me as a father, but after trying to use this site today all I can say is that it’s a usability nightmare.
I’d cancel my account, if I could figure out how…
I will second Kidmondo, which I have been addicted to over the last few weeks. Really great service and very responsive.
Anthony, if you’re willing, would love to hear more in detail about your usability concerns – feel free to shoot me an e-mail at adam [at] totspot [dot] com.
I also want to extend that invitation to anyone writing/reading these comments. This is too often left unsaid, but the TC comments (good, bad, and ugly) are great feedback as we move forward.
Best – Adam
The copying of one’s vision is the best form of flattery. We welcome the competition.
In regards to the comment “parents can actually see who has visited their profile in the past week – a feature that would be creepy on any other site”… it’s not quite the same, but LinkedIn’s “see who viewed your profile” feature (http://blog.lin..._whos_view.html) is similar and it doesn’t seem creepy – it’s generally entertaining.
@10 – Hey Shawn – Kinzin is designed to do exactly what you want. Please check it out. You can get a link to our Facebook application at http://kinzin.com. Kinzin supports private sharing with people inside as well as outside Facebook. We also support a print option, so you can automatically share with people who are offline entirely. Pretty cool…
I checked out Kidmondo – it’s a paid web service. Paying for web services in 2008 is like using the phone book!
I’ve been fortunate enough to have a beta account with TotSpot for several weeks now, my wife and I love the simplicity, one stop shop, for all things baby.
Nice work Totspot!
@Kevin – Kidmondo is free! They do charge for some premium plans but the free account is quite generous.
@10 (I want a parent option for facebook)
You and your wife could each add the friendfeed app. Keep your friendfeed profiles private. Then each import from the same 3rd party site for baby news/photos into friendfeed. The same content will show up on your respective facebook pages.
If you choose OurDoings as the 3rd-party site, you’ll have two ways to import into friendfeed: Either use RSS to treat it as a blog, else choose for yourself when the content is ready for sharing, and send an email+friendfeed update in seconds that includes thumbnails.
OurDoings was originally designed for and by busy parents. Your photos are automatically organized by date, for example. There’s a lot more; try it.
Wow…
I think it’s so cool. Great idea to share the baby experience;-)
I wish this site was created years ago…I would really love to see my parents posting pictures and videos of little Marina. LOL
Marina
http://www.hotforwords.com
On the NET never off…….NEVER
great idea, with little to put in excution. i created username never been able to login!
@Iwan, I’ve been using Kidmondo myself and I like it, but TotSpot is a much better deal. I’m really into photos and they store (and allow downloading) of orginals and offer much more space (i pay $5 for 100mb at Kidmondo, totspot is offering 500mb for free – big diff!!)
This looks alot like http://www.mybabyourbaby.com which launched several months ago.
Seems like a great feature not sure if Parentricity would be a direct competitor. It seems more like a community for parents for both moms and dads.
Hey Totspot, this is Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story. We would like our Logo back.
We developed a Facebook app with similar features. We have over 32,000 people using it. Go to http://www.face...p?id=5180074774 for more info.
Features include:
# Create kid mini-profiles – complete with photo and status
# Track your kids’ milestones (first steps, first word, etc)
# Maintain a growth chart and mini-blog
# List all the events from your kids’ busy schedules
# See friends’ kids’ upcoming birthdays
# Interact with ‘I Have Kids’ community via discussion boards
# Submit your own Parenting Tips and rate others’ tips
# Keep up with what is going on with your friends’ kids too
We’re also working more Photo features….should be released within coming weeks.
CoreBlox, Inc.
http://www.core...com/cb-labs.php
Totspot Team,
Congrats on your launch and press! It will be a fun journey for all of us! If you don’t mind I will love to list all of the sites that are out there now. I started this research when we bought BabySpot.com in Nov 2006 and the list has considerably grown and as I presume it will keep growing fast!
Here is the list not in any particular order:
BabySpot.com
Totspot.com
Parentcity.com
Bundlo.com
Kinzin.com
Mybabyourbaby.com—-Ray is a very nice guy!
Babiesonline.com
Kidmondo.com
Ourcutebabies.com
BabyChums.com
Babysites.com
totsites.com
Babyjellybeans.com
Lil’grams.com
Babypost.com
Ourbabyhompage.com
BabyZone.com
Newbaby.com
And many more!! I am sorry if I missed you. Feel free to add yours.
Some of us are totally free, some of us partially free and some of us are paid for. Guys there is room for everyone! The internet is huge and it’s just starting to segment itself.
As I am a generation X father of two, I see the need for all of us to be present. Personally I use my BabySpot to share my little ones precious moments to my family overseas. Generation X and Y are all about segmenting the internet and they practically live in a cyberspace world.
Most of us have Myspaces, Facebooks, hi5’s, friendster’s, bebo, etc. I dont see a new parent just staying with one baby/toddler social network, I think they will try many of them and they will just go back to the one which makes them feel right at home. Like twitter has me….but I am signing up for Plurk.com!
Member Experience and being responsive is #1 for us!
Good luck to all!
James
James@babyspot.com
twitter: jamesatbabyspot
One more to the list:
http://www.familydiary.com/
It’s another one of those “soon to be launched”.
Jakob, Sweden
FamilyDiary.com
good luck to them