Not for profit family website receives AUD$4.4m grant from Australian Govt
Here’s the info – lets hope the Family 2.0 space can be ignited with some grant or funding our way. The only problem for Family 2.0 sites that are based in Australia that are for-profit is access to this kind of funding. I will, in the coming weeks begin to highlight the differences between RaisingChildren (non-profit) and Minti (for-profit) and why the Government of Australia should consider developing this sector not only for one non-profit website but for all of us aiming to provide a free service and support.
Raising Children gets more Govt funds
$4.4 million for parenting website
11/05/2009
The Raising Children website will be expanded to include parenting information on pre-teen and teenage years with the help of a $4.4 million Australian Government grant.
Funding will also enhance the site to target people with low literacy and numeracy levels and the Indigenous community, through the addition of new and innovative visual based and interactive information resources.
Celebrating Families Week, the Minister for Families Jenny Macklin said this funding will enable the expanded Raising Children website to be a valuable tool to help parents with the day-to-day raising of their children from birth through to their teens.
The Raising Children website already offers up-to-date, research-based material on more than 800 topics spanning child development, behaviour, health, nutrition and fitness, play and learning and sleep.
The site, which currently caters to parents of newborns to eight years, is a valuable resource for Australian mothers, fathers, grandparents and anyone else who cares for a child.
Parents have found the website to be informative, interesting, well-researched and user-friendly. The site also helps connect people through discussion forums.
A recent survey confirmed the benefits of Raising Children, with 97 per cent of users agreeing the website was useful, clear, comprehensive, credible and easily navigated.
Ninety-one per cent felt the website could make them more confident as a parent and 95 per cent would recommend the website to parents or carers.
The Raising Children website has received more than 9.5 million visits since it was launched in May 2006.
The Raising Children Network is a consortium made up of three early childhood organisations Smart Population Foundation, the Parenting Research Centre and the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne.
Raising Children website: www.raisingchildren.net.au <http://www.raisingchildren.net.au>
Vibe Capital launches Refurber DIYpedia
Refurber is the latest advice-opedia social network, by Vibe Capital that launched Minti and is a place for passionate renovators and home improvement DIYers to publish their own DIY advice to the world, as well as connecting into a dynamic social peer to peer network.
Existing home improvement enthusiasts already blogging on the web can increase their readership by claiming (mirroring) their existing blog on their ‘Refurber‘ homepage, which also comes with a lounge for just your Refurber friends to post messages and stop by. As you publish more articles you gain a growing reputation within the ‘Refurber‘ community and your articles found by external DIY enthusiasts on the web are able to see how the article has rated in the community, are more likely to read the content and contact you directly…as well as being able to engage with you and their DIY peers in the ‘Refurber‘ community.
This ease of access to advice and the author of that advice may save some DIY newbies a lot of money. Who knows how far the potential for DIY collaboration could go…
I am a co-founder of Vibe Capital and founder of Minti and am happy to see that we have brought out ‘Refurber‘ which in the subsequent releases will become more customized around the passion for home improvement and be distinct from Minti which is focused on the passion of parenting. Refurber is in beta, although already receiving web search traffic from member authored DIY articles.
See Techcrunch post on Refurber.
Tags: techcrunch, refurber, minti, vibecapital, rachelcook, family20, web20, DIY, homeimprovement, DIYpedia, advice-opedia, socialnetworking
Vibe Capital to launch a new vertical this week
Vibe Capital, the advice-opedia company (I am a co-founder of) has a heavy duty social advice-opedia platform aptly called the “vibEngine”. We aim to add some “vibe” into certain consumer markets and our strategy has been to leverage off the current “vibEngine” API that powers Minti. The second vertical currently in private beta, will now power another “mass market audience” and bring Web 2.0 software to those who aren’t currently serviced with it.
We can’t disclose yet what market yet, but here’s an update on Vibe Capital.
- Minti is the first wholly owned vertical for parents
- Second wholly owned vertical to launch this week sometime
- Vibe Capital secures a pure licensing agreement with a San Francisco company
- Vibe Capital’s first equity partnership with Building In London
- Vibe Capital secures a second equity partnership in an exciting new and under-serviced market
- Vibe Capital raises funds to buy a strategic stake in their technology partner and digital agency, Market United
Stayed tuned for the launch release on the new vertical :0)
Tags: vibecapital, minti, rachelcook, claycook, matthewmacfarlane, marketunited, buildinginlondon, family2.0, vibEngine, web2.0, socialsoftware, socialnetworking
Family 2.0 – its warming up, TheMotherHood, Newbaby, KidConfidence
What started as a hobby has morphed into a requirement that I at least look into Family 2.0 space everyday! I have many sites I am struggling to keep up with. I am getting there, and the site need to be polished, same look and feel just with more widgets, an advertising by the sites I profile on, only :0)
Latest quick updates…
Has their splash page up! Sign up for The Motherhood
I like this, it is currently seeding and displaying the latest blog posts in the ‘mother hood’…I love it, what a cool idea. Go Cooper, I am behind your creed all the way!
I know it’ll make me blog more, just to see my post on The Motherhood homepage.
Thanks to the very cool Nik Cubrilovic from Omnidrive/Techcrunch for shooting me info on Newbaby… Newbaby will be powered by Reality Digital, adding rich media to the site, enhancing the member experience with expert and member loaded videos and all the strappings of a social network. View the release here…
I like it…my little one is getting into all things digital and not matter how I try, he is exposed to digital media and he is learning pretty impressive stuff for a nearly three year old. Parents need to be in the ‘know’ of what video games are appropriate and junk food ad free. I am sure we will hear more about these guys if not here around the place….What is Kidconfidence?
“We help non-gamer parents find the right video games for their children – games that are both fun and have learning value.” Kidconfidence
Tags: themotherhood, newbaby, kidconfidence, family2.0
Minti – places 2nd to Yahoo! Answers Web2.0 Awards
Minti – Powered by Parents places 2nd to Yahoo! Answers in the Web 2.0 Awards for the category “Questions + Advice”
Can’t help but beam 
Usability wasn’t as strong, but we did get one more star than Yahoo! Answers for our efforts, so very happy and honored to even be anywhere near the name Yahoo! Answers.
Tags: minti, yahoo!answers, web2.0, awards, seomoz, family2.0
Buidling in London – Powered by rage!
Related Web2.0, Family 2.0 site.
Do you live in London? Thinking of building? You need to check this site out first before you take that ultimate, frightening plunge.
Building In London has just launched softly, and I must disclose that this is a recent addition to the Vibe Capital family. It’s Vibe Capital’s first release of an equity licensing partnership and founder Isabelle, has such exciting vision for Building In London. *Vibe Capital is the parent company behind Minti and of which I am a Co-founder of both.
Minti is somewhat different in terms of the vibEngine powering the site, Building in London has some fresh faced features that ought to get any Londoner tickled pink
For starters, Building In London features a ‘supplier directory‘, ‘Hall of Fame‘ and ‘Polling‘ questions, as well as a glossary for those really obscure remodeling terms (can you tell, I have no idea about building)…
However, interestingly enough, I have taken on projects to change some part of our house.
Building In London has a fresh, cool look. It has some similarities in features to Minti, but you wouldn’t have guessed it, had you not been a user of Minti.
I do remember once way back, a news report of Madonna, flying in American Builders to the UK, because she had a falling out with her UK builders…that worried me, because I think Australian Builders are better than the American Builders…oops what am I starting here
Have fun Londoners, connect with others that are creating amazing spaces and share the love and hate relationship that comes with Building In London.
tags: vibecapital, buildinginlondon, minti, isabelle
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,
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…
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.
