Friends for Families – Your circle of friends just got bigger
Friends for Families.com what a great idea, was profiled at Techcrunch. The model is a matching service for families to meet other families. Fantastic if you have recently relocated, or maybe planning a long vacation to say Europe or coming out to Australia or just wanting to meet families in your area. You often lose touch with friends who don’t have kids, or want to expand this area of meeting more families due to the stage of life you are at. I never thought I would ever become converted and so into parenting given my background, but on becoming a parent (and those that said to me you will never understand until you become a parent, you guys were right) I see more purpose in myself within society and realized the true the spending power families have. In the throws of this, and as the family unit forms, you realise you need to share with other families with whom you genuinely get along with, as well as have some common values or interests together.
It will be interesting to see how it goes and what families our family gets matched with and the process of safety in being matched etc…
Stay tuned, I will update to see if we have found a match in our local area.
Mom social networks all launch
Maya’s Mom has launched with an annoucement of angel funding of US$1m. It does look as though there is some validity in this niche area of moms, families and parents, with Minti (I am a Co-founder) also raising seed capital of US$1.2m. It is somewhat encouraging that this space is providing niche opportunities online as well as future advertising opportunities from the offline (1.7 trillion dollar Mom Market industry). From recently reading about the launch at Techcrunch here…Caterina Fake (Flickr founder) has invested in the this angel round. I can’t help but mention that Maya’s Mom does have a spruced up Yahoo Answer’s like Q&A area, however on reviewing sites like Mothers Click and also on Minti…both have the Q&A feature as part of the standard feature set. Traditional Web 1.0 parenting sites have been providing this offering for a while…but I do think it is a great component of every family orientated social site, I think it’s a great door opener into the community…
As a mother, I do like to ask questions on Minti’s Q&A area, but my real detailed advice and info comes from within the community – of course right, it’s members you get to know and trust…especially from moms with 8 kids for example, it’s detailed info from the trenches etc. (Forgive me I am a tad bias) On Minti, I do like being able to search and find articles written by parents, but also tab across and see what the community is also talking about on the same search term, in groups, blogs, Q&A and forums. The depth is the success of all these sites and I am sure groups will flourish on Maya’s Mom.
What I like about Maya’s Mom is the focus on Kids Activities and has gone to some detail in this area, as Mom’s progress in bringing up kids, activities are more and more important, as well as moms allocating funds for activites…it’s great that sites in this niche are standing out and differentiating, and the gals (founders) over at Maya’s Mom are really nice and I am glad to have met 
MothersClick has also launched and provides also provides Q&A tag clouds. With Groups and Blogs the main offerings…my previous post on MothersClick. I would love to know more about MothersClick and what other benefits are available in this community. I do like my blog to offer stand out features for parents to make more informed decisions and join what takes their fancy, hopefully more than one.
Newbaby.com has launched aswell. Back in my previous post I did wonder who out of the three with launch first, and Newbaby.com was the first. It will be interesting to see how big this market is and if there is enough room for “Group, Blogs” myspace for moms, type social sites. Scalability will be the question and focus, as well as finding other keys success factors for growth. I think social sites for moms, parents and families is far and wide in the internet ocean, so it will be execution the major factor for all Family 2.0 sites of success. It’s either appealing to the $1.7 trillon dollar industry, or the YouTube vision of success, and if clever both… either route it will be a fun ride as well as viewing this space 10 years from now…
Famster – Your family’s home on the internet
Famster is another family orientated site, geared to organizing the family and keeping each other within the family connected. Famster have a good looking user interface and some great features for the family. Dad will love the news feed customisation capability, mom will love the calendar, photo storage and the kids will enjoy features like the theme park and character studio. My question is can you network with other families and get into social networking within the site…I will have to sign up and get a detailed view.
The family now have more options in finding a site to organise the family (like Cingo, Famundo) and as a mom and involved in business I am desperate to find a site I can organise my whole life, family, the house, property, businesses in one area. I am getting close to having to really get into this and choose. It does make me thankful for a computer in the kitchen…will all moms do this in the future and write their lists online for example?
It is only a matter of time 
More info see Techcrunch profile on Famster.
