Ok listen up if you are part of the population that has to deal with monthly fertility cycles. Newly launched Go28Days may be the thing for you if you are really trying hard to get pregnant, or really trying hard not to get pregnant. Like a bunch of other sites, they monitor your cycle days, temperature and other stuff I’m not going to talk about, and let you know the days you are most fertile. But the site also has a number of nice touches, including sharing of information with select friends. And soon they say they’ll have a Facebook app (of course) and a mobile version to for adding data and, presumably, making a last minute fertility check before engaging in behavior you’ll likely regret in the morning.
The service is newly launched, but is a sister site to a Polish version that launched late last year. Users of the Polish service have created 100,000 fertility charts, the company says, and over 2 million comments have been added (users can add information daily about their…bodies I guess).
Never say never, Mike. A quick trip to Thailand can set you up square.
We’re way outside of my area of expertise, but I’m pretty sure that still wouldn’t make me a user of the site.
This really needs to be an Android app
Also see PMSBuddy – http://pmsbuddy.com/
i also know of http://www.mymo...thlycycles.com/
they look very similar. not sure i will ever use these. i had my kids early and without all that planning.
I agree. I much rather skip all the planning and have all the sex.
Also see Fertility Friend – http://fertilityfriend.com
The pmsbuddy site’s text and premise really annoy the hell out of me. (And NO, it’s not that time of the month.) However, I think there’s something interesting about being able to see if there are local or national patterns of fertility cycles. Something tells me that there’s some interesting research to be done in there. (Are there differences in the cycles of women in rural versus urban areas? Are there differences in the cycles of women in coastal areas? How about in areas near certain types of industry?)
Go28Days seems like a great app for combining with super-mobile apps — google gadgets, facebook apps, and mini-apps that run on iphone or android that deal with one small piece of the full app that’s on the Website. Imagine an android phone app that takes inputs for temp (and other things that you don’t check near your computer), and then sends it to the servers so that you can see the big picture on your laptop or desktop computer. What other health-based apps could be done like that?
There is ton of literature linking a woman’s cycle to the moon cycle. Check out http://www.epig..._fertility.html.
The link between menstruation and the lunar orbit is a myth. If it were true, all women — in fact, all female mammals that menstruate — would have the same cycle, which is not the case. There is no plausible physical mechanism by which the moon could affect female hormones without also affecting countless other visible aspects of human biology. Think it through.
“There is no plausible physical mechanism by which the moon could affect female hormones without also affecting countless other visible aspects of human biology.”
Really? Sorry, but you are cracked. The cycle is definitely linked to lunar cycles, but not everyone relates to the moon in the same way (see Still Life With Woodpecker)
And the moon affects the tides as well as outbreaks of schizophrenic and anti-social behavior also.
I sense a new brand hatching mike…MenstrualCycleCrunch, I think its going to be a huge winner. I’d put it in the nav bar asap
Talk about a niche market. Seems odd that such a niche product can attract that much visitors.
niche market, as in 50% of the population?
Actually, more than 50%.
Actually, it’s not applicable to the post menopausal so it doesnt apply to all women.
I think he meant only the one who are trying to get preggers…
All humans, men included. are affected by moon cycles. This could be used to trace the cycles of both sexes. Try living outside for 3+ months without electricity and you will understand your own cycles.
Niche market? you mean like half of the people in the world?
Hmm if you put it that way, guess you’re right lol
I guess i meant it more in a way like; seems odd that women will use the internet to track that kinds of data. (in Belgium anyway) But hey, with those numbers on Poland, seems their guess was right 
Belgian women will use the internet to track anything
poland = roman catholic = very little contraception or family planning. i’m sure most polish users use this site as a vain attempt to avoid getting pregnant.
I wonder why all these sites (another one: http://beta.mon.thly.info/) have to be so pink and bubbly. In terms of design choices, it feels really condescending.
Shame. Although I get the title of the article, I’m sure these poor people who built the site aren’t too happy with that as a quote.
While it’s always nice to see some personal commentary, does it really need to be part of the headline? Is that the most newsworthy part of this site, that Michael Arrington will probably never use it?
You should not be so squeemish when talking about these things.
I showed this to my wife and she reckons she might use the site. She has been tracking a few of those things on paper. We’ve got two boys, and we really want a girl. As I understand it, tracking these things might help to skew the chances in favour of a girl on our next attempt.
I think my broader point is that this is obviously something a lot of people would want to track at least at certain times of their lives, and not only for the obvious get pregnant / don’t get pregnant reasons.
You do realize that it is the sperm that determines the sex of the newborn, right? How would monitoring your wife have any relevance? The male gamete supplies the X or Y chromosome that determines sex, females can only supply an X chromosome.
@ Ralph
Most people don’t care about Biology…lol. I mean they are too dumb to understand it
Hehe, it’s hilarious, you’re so uncomfortable Mike, I *had* to send my fiancée the link!
Btw, is there a female blogger at TechCrunch? Posts like this probably highlight why a female perspective is often useful in the male-dominated (or at least -saturated) tech world.
Other related thing, a reason why such a service is so popular in Poland, of all places, might be because naural birth control is the only form of birth control allowed by the Catholic Church and, of course, the Church is a pretty big deal over there.
If you were worth a shit, you’d know that every female blogger at… ah, fuck it. you suck, the end.
Several years ago (10ish?) there was an app that ran in your system tray called Red Flag, a simple 28 day counter, complete with red, green and checkered flags. Teh internets search couldn’t unearth it now….
Perhaps the site is so pink and bubbly so it can serve as a warning to squeamish males, like Arrington, to turn and run the other way FAST.
I wonder how many governments the data will be secretly handed over to….
I heard a rumor that this is just an elaborate research attempt to figure out how to stop the vaginal bleeding of John McCain and Barack Obama.
I AM part of the population that you referred to, Mike, and I wouldn’t use the site either. Sometimes even the internet has its limits!
is a fully open market for work…not new but open
Reminds me of that company (I think in France) that would do a similar analysis (blood chemistry, cycle days, temperature, etc.) and let you know when you should conceive if you want a boy or a girl. They had testimonials from satisfied parents AND provided a money back guarantee. Only $10,000 (or so)! Well, they ended up being right 1/2 the time and simply gave money back when didn’t work. They allegedly made a mint before being caught.
Actually they would have done better to pick girls 100% of the time since it would have given them a 51-53% success chance instead of 50%.
I’ve programmed one of these for another company.
This one doesn’t do the computations for fertility though (depending upon who you ask it’s either 3/10ths of a point bump in F or 2 standard deviations from the trailing 10 days). In any event I don’t suppose a charting tool that doesn’t tell you when it’s likely safe or not will be widely received. Did make it on Tech Crunch though so somebody must have good publicists.
just looked at the site out of curiosity – needs better instructions or a better wizard.
Check out also YourDays free ovulation Calendar http://www.yourdays.com
It has been running for +5 years with 200K registered users and + 1M of comments and personal notes.
Arrington, grow up. Your comments read like that of a 13 year-old afraid of getting cooties from talking about “female issues”. Besides, this is a topic of interest to men too because a lot of couples deal with fertility problems.
Thanks Bill for being the first to say that!
SoOme people are just a little touchy because of their own personal issues. Arrington wants page views, and you fell right in line. Quit your whining and get back to work, you drones.
With over 30MM trying to conceive in the U.S. alone there’s always a need for innovative tools to make the process easier. There are over 7MM people going through Infertility in the U.S. alone (50MM+ worldwide…).
We launched FertilityTies.com a comprenhensive online community that offers daily medical advice along with community tools. We find that there’s a lot of misinformation out there about overall Reprodutive Health, including how physical symptoms are interpreted…
Check it out if you or someone you know could benefit from this service. You can questions to fertility specialists online for free and easily find a lot of medical information on topics related to Reproductive Health.
Yeah you’ll never use cause you have male roommates (despite your zillions)
and a dog!
These sorts of cycle calendars have been around for years on WebMD, etc. My wife was a fan when we were trying for our first two kids. Leave it to the man to see its potential as “Digital Birth Control”, as I called it. Our third child just turned two…
Is web app always better than paper with grids? In this case, I think the grids paper given by your doctor is good enough, quick and easy.
Not as useless as http://www.iamb...oesnothing.com/
I’ll just ignore all the previous adolescent comments. Having used fertilityfriend.com for almost a year now, the one thing it has, which Go28Days does not, is auto chart analysis that is incredibly helpful if you’re trying to figure out when you’ve ovulated. That’s probably one of the most important features for a site like this. FF let’s you determine it yourself. And I’m not sure if I really would want people who are just as inexperienced as myself offering advice on my chart without the fallback of auto-analysis.