Minti celebrate 1st birthday
In all the rush we forgot to celebrate Minti’s first birthday, the hard working tech team had been transforming Minti’s back-end into an API (vibEngine)…whilst we flew all the way to the San Francisco bay area. I have dug up a local article on Minti, which I had great fun doing, why? because it was about helping parents and I suppose I’m on this social purpose…which I get a warm fuzzy when I see members on Minti emailing me their amazing experiences and how other members are really helping them in real life. My thoughts and heart goes out to those mothers who face huge odds and have found a place for real live support. I hope we can grow bigger and touch more mothers and parents lives.
For those that have been asking for me to get the article into electronic format, here it is…albeit well over due – lol
Take a look,
Stealth mode vertical – Minti founders raise angel capital
We are raising funds for this vertical that will be licensing the vibeEngine that powers Minti. Launching in an untapped market. If it sparks your interest and you invest in angel rounds…buzz me at linkedin
Minti has a direct competitor; Disney’s to be launched Family.com
To date, Minti hasn’t had a direct competitor, (until now) to it’s ‘parent-to-parent advice-opedia‘ or parentpedia for short as Matthew from FT, nicely calls it…Parentpedia will be one of Disney’s featured sections on Family.com, and will be launched very soon. Released on the FT.com, “Disney Launches wiki aimed at parents“, Matthew Garrahan, Financial Times, goes on to write…
“Following the explosion in popularity of community and social networking sites such as MySpace, Disney and its rivals, including Viacom, have grappled with how to build sustainable communities online“…
It was expected that large media companies, like Disney would focus their efforts in this area, and it was more a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. It has given some sort of validation to Minti’s parent advice-opedia offering, which I was interested in seeing. It will also be one to note to see what Family.com’s culture of the social network and ParentPedia evolves into. It is good for the Web 1.0 veterans utilizing Family 2.0/Web 2.0 knowledge of social networking and user generated content, just how much of a focus amongst it’s conglomerate of divisions will be one to keep an eye on.
ivillage – integrated social network
iVillage have launched their women’s social network, using the back end technology of Onesite. iVillage’s offering for women are groups, video, photos, blog and homepage. iVillage has the largest network of women online and is the darling of the space during tech boom #1 and still continues to be so, with the acquisition of iVillage by NBC. It’s a niche myspace offering for women to connect, share and contribute.
This new service offering got a great review by Mashable…here
iVillage is a web veteran and for us Family 2.0 sites we need to keep innovating and bringing out unique features to attract those members that we are all vying for. I do think our Minti model is performing well and celebrated it’s first birthday a couple of weeks ago, on the 8th of March 07…is growing organically now with almost 20,000 members and hundreds and thousands of actions in our activity list, we are happy with Minti’s progress. iVillage is a very big Web 1.0 player and using Onesite was a smart strategy in delivering a myspace social network to it’s millions of women members. Onesite is a competitor to VibeCapital, who launched Minti, being it’s first high-touch social advice-opedia. It will be interesting to see if Minti’s differentiation point – (this advice-opedia focus) will keep Minti flourishing under the large shadow of iVillage. We shall see…
I found my nanny on Caresquare
As someone coming to stay from another country, there are many issues, concerns in setting up care for your child. Attending conferences is something I like doing, however, it takes me away from my son…which is fine if he’s happy, which in turn makes me happy. So imagine my worry in trying to start from scratch to find someone I can trust, even if it’s for a day or two…well, I found more than I dreamed of…I found the most loving and caring nanny I could ever wish for. Thank, Ariel you helped me find my feet here and connect into your community was a trusting experience. The power of close friends and their nanny referrals was so strong and very empowering. It was so much better than trying to source a nanny myself, having to think about the questions, the recruitment process arrr…it was also difficult to check out other competitors as I needed to have a US credit card and couldn’t pay via paypal. Caresquare was free, what a plus and I’ve found a nanny for life!!!!
Caresquare was a real top quality experience for me!! A+!!
Loving the bay area
I’m on linkedin and will be attending local events here in the Bay Area. Looks like we are here for 12 months if not more…
Minti – launches release version 2 (with photos)
Minti (of which I am a co-founder of) has launched it’s version 2 release. The back-end (vibEngine) was nicely transformed into an API platform for licensing ability to roll out more verticals. Minti was given a nice little boost in strengthening the technology platform and got photos as a brand new feature as a present. So on Minti now you can upload photos, make public or private, add your photos to a Minti group, share, post, swap, comment, give two or one thumbs up and link to your photos. We will also be announcing a brand new baby in a weeks time, with it’s homebase in London.
I am really proud of the parents on Minti. It’s becoming a budding, lively and friendly community, one that is centered around advice with a positive social purpose. Sharing advice and experiences is one component that I can see is making a positive impact in the lives of mothers and all types of parents. I do love the fact that parents have access to all different types of social networks and that we find friends on these different networks. I really believe that our lives are interesting and fulfilling, being a member of one won’t cover. For events, I am a member of upcoming.org, for business networking I am on linkedin, for advice on parenting I am on Minti, and other parents may be part of many parenting social networks aligning to their particular offering.
Adding photos was just a fun way of sharing more of those funny, sad or happy moments.
So for what ever parent social network you are on, enjoy and empower.
Mumspace – beta user testing
Is now live and accepting beta users. Mumspace is doing some great things in fostering business for mothers. If you get a chance to check Mumspace out you will find an easy to use social network. I am just trying to plough through 400 emails. So I will do more of a review on Mumspace in the coming weeks.
In the meantime check it out and let me know what you think> mumspace
