It may seem like the last thing the web needs is another parenting website, but you wouldn’t know that by the impressive growth the new website CircleOfMoms.com chalked up over the past couple of months. The site, launched in October 2008, has already grown to over 850,000 registered users. Seventy-five percent of the users are US-based.

Circle of Moms is what you would expect from the name. It’s a community that lets moms connect with friends, talk about their kids, and join topical Q&A communities. Users have created over 1,000 such communities for topics like parents with toddlers, special needs children, and even recipe swapping. Many have tens of thousands of members. This holiday season the site will also be turning on a gifting widget to let moms recommend the best gifts for kids by age group and gender.

Brand advertisements, beginning next week, as well as affiliate revenue from gift purchases are the main modes of monetizing the site in the short run.

But the story doesn’t stop with a site that’s struck a chord with mothers; Circle of Moms has grown its user base with a unique multi-pronged approach. The site has a standard web presence plus a Facebook application. The combo allows moms to interact with each other through both the main site and Facebook. The Facebook application itself currently has over 840,000 monthly active users.

Founder Ephraim Luft says that the Facebook application and website have helped re-enforce each other, with mothers on Facebook pulling in friends on the website and vice versa. He plans to continue integrating with other platforms in the future to ensure mothers can continue to access the services regardless of where they are on the web.

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The service, which is built on Ruby on Rails, just entered private beta. They are targeting new mothers who will create profiles for themselves and their babies, and add other mothers/kids as friends. A key part of the service will be recording milestones like the first crawl, steps, solid food, word said, etc. with text, video and photos. Users will then be able to have books printed with all of this material, for an additional fee.

Profile pages for members will not be available to the public. Users can either open them up to all Totspot members, or just their friends.

The company says they have not yet raised any capital but are currently talking to venture capitalists in New York and Silicon Valley. Sign up on their home page to request a beta invitation.

And if you have a baby, let me know if you think you’d use this.

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As Michael Arrington wrote his initial review of the site in March 2006, the overall concept of Minti isn’t entirely new. As a service it sits somewhere between an advice site such as BabyCentre (a site I visited regularly when I was on the road to parenthood) and a forum. The difference is in the implementation.

Weighing User Generated Interactions

Minti is powered by the Vibe Engine, a custom built CMS owned by Vibe Capital (the majority shareholders of Minti) that also powers sites such as Refurber.

Minti has over 20,000 active registered members (as opposed to inactive or casual visitors, they are doing 7 figures in traffic) who comment, vote, tag, and contribute advice. Consider something like Breastfeeding; Minti has many user generated advice articles on the subject but it’s how they are weighed that makes the service usable and perhaps something different.

The Vibe Engine weighs votes on an article based on a number of factors. Anyone can vote, but an unregistered visitor’s vote is not weighed as heavily as a registered user. Users themselves fall into ten member categories based on the amount of activity the undertake on Minti itself. Each level has a higher weighing meaning that users who are more active have a stronger vote than those who aren’t. It should be noted that none of this is evident to the user; these are all primarily backend levels, although at certain levels users get extra privileges including the ability to mark a contribution for review/ deletion is it is not of a reasonable standard. Users at higher levels also get to vote on reviews/ deletions as well in a truly distributed management model where regular users have ownership in decision making.

Overall the model delivers user rated results that serve to filter lots of information in a more accessible fashion for all readers.

Because They Care

I can at times be a little skeptical towards sites that tap into user generated content to build a destination, particularly when those sites then go on to profit greatly from those contributions; the build it, exploit it, flip it mentality is very much alive in Web 2.0. What impressed me about Rachel and Clay Cook (Minti’s founders) was that in building Minti they built something they would use themselves, and more importantly could help others as well. As parents of young children (about the same age as my son) they’d used the net to find info in much the same way I have previously, and shared the same frustrations; generally when you’re seeking information on a parenting topic you like more than one opinion, and yet many services often only provide a limited number of views. With Minti they are aiming to provide a wealth of first hand knowledge and advice, a one stop shop for all things parenting that isn’t as perhaps lecturing as some advice you find online elsewhere.

What perhaps they didn’t see happening (to the extent that it has) is the social networking aspect of Minti. I heard some amazing stories of complete strangers who knew each other only via Minti helping each other in times of crisis, not just online but taking their online relationship’s offline as well. For privacy considerations I can’t print the stories, but they were something that I’ve not heard from a startup before. Minti has become a community focused site very much in the traditional sense of the word community, complete with relationships and friendly advice. In an age where we spend more and more time online, whilst conversely spending less and less time offline building face to face relationships, Minti provides a place where parents can connect, in effect recreating the community spirit of old.

Would You Use It?

The biggest test for any site is in using it. Obviously this is a site focused on parents so it won’t appeal to everyone. I like the ability to get different opinions quickly and easily, filtered and rated for your consideration. The inclusion of comments at the base of articles brings in one of the best features of blogs so that immediately you get a sense of how others view the advice as well. Related articles and external links means that users can easily access more information on the topic, and tagging is surprisingly done well on the site. If I were going down the path of having another child (well, I’m important initially in that process..perhaps not so much after), I’d jump straight into Minti. Now if only they had a working cure for my wife’s seriously terrible disposition in the first trimester I’d be calling for the Nobel Prize to be awarded.

Minti’s competitors include Maya’s Mom (acquired by BabyCentre for $7m) and Mothers Click.

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Clavier, who has a degree in computer science, has been actively investing in startups over the last few years and has had notable successes such as Truveo (acquired by AOL for a rumored $50 million), Userplane (acquired by AOL for a rumored $35 million), MyBlogLog (acquired by Yahoo for $10 million), Kaboodle (acquired by Hearst for a rumored $30-40 million), Mayas Mom (acquired by BabyCenter for $7 million), Dogster, Kongregate, Edgeio and many others. In other words, he has an eye for winners. His investment philosophy will remain much the same, he says. He’s just now investing money from limited partners as well as his own capital.

He says he’ll invest the fund in a total of 30 to 40 seed stage startups with investments ranging from $100k – $500k. SoftTech VC will focus on consumer Internet.

Clavier has made four initial investments through the fund: Satisfaction Unlimited, Social Media Network, Grouply (which will launch at the conference today) and Active Athlete.

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Other companies are addressing the parenting/family social network opportunity as well (we’ve covered Minti, Famster and FriendsForFamilies). But Maya’s Mom is focused on allowing users to request and offer advice to others first, and more traditional social networking features second.

The heart of Maya’s Mom is their “Talk” section. Rather than following the article format of Minti, Maya’s Mom allows you to post about any questions you have publicly, anonymously, or to specific friends. Users can subscribe to the most recent questions via RSS. Questions are grouped by tags and analyzed for duplicates when submitted. You can search for answers by keyword or tag. If someone has already posted a question like yours, Maya’s Mom will direct you toward their answer. Like activities, you can also create list and be alerted when new answers to your questions arrive.

The company boasts a strong group of initial investors from a recent “around $1 million” angel round – True Ventures, Jeff Clavier, James Currier, Caterina Fake, Geoff Ralston, Raymond Stern, and Michael Tanne. The Maya’s Mom blog is here. And if you are wondering about the name of the company – Maya is founder Ann Crady’s daughter. I wonder if Ann’s son Derick will someday feel less loved because the site isn’t named in his honor instead.

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If you have kids, make sure you sign up.

Interesting fact: Maya’s Mom is now headquartered in Flock’s old offices in downtown Palo alto, along with Dorrian Porter’s hot new mobile startup Mozes.