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>

Enter Clay Cook CEO of Minti

I am handing over my beloved blog to my husband (oh no) until I come out of my self-imposed maternity leave. Mind you I am loving my little 5 month old and the blessing I have been given for a second time. This doesn’t mean my mind isn’t turning a hundred miles per hour. Quite the contrary, I am planning a re-birth, with video or a show, new hosting, revamped design, and with me showing myself in full color (which means I need to hit the treadmill and not the chocolate bars). Until then, my capable and intelligent husband will ignite the pixels and add some flavorsome text to this already interesting project.

So grab your surfboard and come for the ride….although I can’t help but let him only be a ‘contributor’ for now, otherwise I’ll check back and the theme would have changed to something black – lol

Gooruze – powered by online marketers is LIVE

Gooruze is live. After months of keeping this under wraps I have been able to talk about this new Vibe “social-pedia network” just for online marketers. This billion, gazillon dollar industry is fueling more and more mainstream companies to jump in and try and learn all they need to know about online marketing. Gooruze provides the one-stop place to meet the “Guru’s” of industry and read crucial content about online marketing straight from the horses mouth. This community is like an online marketing conference on steroids, but at your own pace.

The things you can do at Gooruze;

- subscribe and watch just about any type of content within the community through a simple to use “watchlist” RSS fead reader that also facilitates external feeds.

- hyper interactive experts in many areas and fields in online marketing.

- Connect on a personal level by being able to read the online marketers blog and learn everything they are passionate about, sign up and you can comment and talk to them directly. People like Andy Beal from Marketing Pilgrim, Duncan Riley from Techcrunch, see the list of ‘Founding Gooruze” here…

- Talk and engage directly with experts, ask questions and get answers quick.

- Quick news section keeps you informed about the activity in this space.

- The exciting thing is that articles are written by the very people you can get to know and learn from, feel comfortable to contact and possibly be confident enough to engage in their services or delve deeper into the experts field to see just how much online marketing fits into your business.

- Search across all content types: comments, articles, blogs, group blogging, Q+A for a particular search term, which gives you a breadth of social information on the search term.

- sort through the ever overwhelming content on online marketing and find all you need in one place.

As co-founder of Gooruze (and of *Vibe whom provides the “vibEngine” platform that powers Gooruze off an API), Gooruze was able to raise a small round of Angel funding raised in good old Perth, as well as having been able to launch with an additional “news” feature relatively efficiently. Like any beta Web 2.0 site, we still have navigational and UI bugs or things to review, but relatively less in comparison to verticals launched in the past.

Maybe Gooruze could look at VC funding now as the next step. Or even *Vibe looking at VC funding to pump more funds now into the strategy of growing these micro-communities and start building depth in the portfolio, now that Vibe has many web properties in it’s network.

Vibe: *Vibe Capital is the parent company (wholly owned: Minti, refurber), (interests in: BuildingInLondon, Gooruze) and licensing client Greatschools.net

Vibe Capital is a leading edge social media and venture capital company providing global solutions, based in Perth, Australia.

Bloggers: A great review by Andy Beard “Gooruze Preview“

Tangler – Forum 2.0 or the chatosphere?

So what is interesting about Tangler? This is a great new Aussie start up that I am proud to say have angel invested in. What intrigues me about this social network is the potential to change the way we engage in conversation on the web. The “Blogosphere” for example is a bunch of blogs that live on the web, free access to any thought or self-expression we want to expose ourselves to. Plus, you can comment as well.

Well, imagine this, if you could comment live with others on the blog, and that conversation was also collected as a topic on the Tangler.com’s discussion network, you can see how powerful that extra extension out from the blog creates value for the ‘writer of the blog’. Why? Well, they know that their post was of interest to talk live about, as well as having the opportunity to attract more potential readers to congregate together in this discussion inside Tangler for others to swarm to if they so wish and then back onto the blog to check the author out, or subscribed to their feed…(thats powerful viral implications number one)

Then I got excited when the Tangler boys, mentioned that they could extend this conversations and garner rapid reach by ‘embedding’ the conversation on other topically related/non-related blogs across the entire “blogosphere” (also applying to social networks, and I am sure webpages as well). This second viral discussion distribution will create a “chatosphere” effect, and all of a sudden we have a new ecosystem, with bloggers, social networks and webpages, desperate for that live longtail reach. It’s twitter on steriods, manic viral discussion, creating and solidifying the chat-web a platform for live interaction, at the same time regardless of the social software.

More simply, it’s like those days of simultaneous live broadcasts of a show via radio and listeners can call in to talk about the topics. Everyone is digesting, everyone is involved in the “conversation” live as at the same time as the event.

So in short, Tangler aggregates all the “talk” and “conversation exchange” into an organised fashion on the Tangler.com site. You can then add the links to the groups to your external blog, social network or webpage. I like the fact that Tangler has Groups, then inside is Topics, which contain discussions, PLUS you can add rich media into the conversation sessions you are having. It is really effective for “collaboration” “feedback” and “visual” explanation. This then is accessible from blogs to Tangler, or Tangler to the blogs. You need to have Tangler as the chatters home base to extend the viral discussions, which is then easily spread out into the blogs all over the web, coming full circle to the original author blog, discussion. Interesting.

So think about the distribution network – the “blogosphere” spawns out the “chatosphere” so the commenters on the blog can really participate without fear of no-one talking back, as well as find “their kind” back on the Tangler.com site and a potential distribution into the “blogosphere”…Just think about the hive of activity within this so called “chatosphere” (I have affectionately termed) when the Presidential Election is on. Media will be live polling from the “chatosphere” giving instant national feedback on the mood, opinions and the hot debates. The the blogs will experience traffic flows via their live comment sessions on their sites, as they produce/publish more content to talk about.

Aside from the potential uses…

I really do think people that take the time to comment, should have a social network for themselves, as well as the rest of the “chatosphere” being able to jump in from any place from the social web. I think its only a matter of a short time that this real new powerful enhancement for the “Blogosphere and social networks alike” will embrace this Forum 2.0 and Commenting 2.0 with furious and open arms, to liven the social aspect of supplying you time and effort to commenting on someone else works, topic, issue etc.

I think the back channel has the potential to come alive…

Check out the review on Techcrunch.

Here’s some more goodies from the Tangler boys!

We’ve upgraded forums:

· Networked – every forum is connected through a single system.

· Fast – real-time discussion through Ajax.

· Fun – rich-media friendly for pics, videos, flash.

· Swarm – desktop app which alerts you of new messages, topics, invitations.

· Social – cross forum interaction across subjects, groups and people.

· Dynamic threading – single threaded topics with new topic linking.

I encourage you to take a look at Tangler.com and see if there’s something in there that interests you. For anyone that has a special connection to their readers this concept enhances the relationship your social network and blog will have in terms of reputation of the members in the discussion. For those flamed in the past this is your calling to come back :0)

tags: tangler, martywells, mickluibrinkas, techcrunch, rachelcook, angelinvestor, claycook, chatosphere, forum20, embedded, discussion, chat, live, messaging, richmedia, blogs, blogosphere, application, family20, talkingtechonfamily20

Ning – create your social network in seconds

Ning is a platform that allows anyone to create a social network in seconds. Using a templated process you select your themes and features. They have just raised $44m in venture funding and they are based in Palo Alto. I think its a great idea to provide a platform for anyone to express, share and socialize around any topic you wish. Ning, I in my opinion, is going up against Wikia and Demand Media. In terms of us as a competitor, I do get asked “so what’s different between the ‘vibEngine‘ platform and Ning?”

I do refer people interested in the vibEngine, to Ning who’s platform may be more suited (ie. set up a social network for free and almost instantly)…rather than creating a company providing a site, such as Minti.com

Richard from ReadWriteWeb, did a great comparison and I thought I would clarify a few points on the ‘vibEngine‘

• Vibe focuses on the customized market, corporates and budding entrepreneurs in equity or licensing options.
• We white label, as well as launch our own sites in key markets.
• The ‘vibEngine’ contains what we call our ’special or secret sauce’ of member ranking algorithms.
• We are a cross between About.com, Wikipedia/Wikia, Myspace and TripAdvisor, not just a pure social network.
• We have RSS content readers for subscription to internal and external content, as part of your member account.
• You can mirror your external blog, increase readership to your ’specific’ audience immediately.
• Gain reputation of your authored web published advice/experiences that could change the lives of others world-wide.
• You can search across all conversation types: articles, blogs, comments, group blogs, question+answer areas for a search term, latest articles, pretty much anything you what to subscribe to, an author’s work, blog, group blog, questions+answers, friends and chat privately with friends in your own lounge.
• We have self management systems to handle reported content and community issues, which significantly reduces flaming and really evil content.
• We have an international and a US focus.

And lastly,

• We have a global mission for distributing ‘collective wisdom’ and ‘advice and experience sharing’ …we are the ‘realty network of everyday experts’ sharing meaningful quality content, that has a ’social vision’, aiming to impact the lives of others in an ‘extraordinary way’.
• We are a platform to provide a ‘voice to pass something meaningful on’ to those seeking it.

See Richard McManus’: vibEngine, Ning and PeopleAggregator comparison blog post.

See Techcrunch’s profile’s on Ning in Full and Ning Raises a Big Round

Marc Andreessen’s blog post on Ning

Tags: Techcrunch, marcandreessen, ning, minti, rachelcook, family20, web20, socialnetworks, diy, peopleaggregator, vibEngine, venturecapital, angelfunding, demandmedia, wikia, wikipedia, about.com, myspace, tripadvisor

Glam – eportal social network surpasses iVilliage

Glam.com last week became the number 1 women’s destination site on the web, taking over 800 pound gorilla, iVillage now owned by NBC Universal. Full analysis and story here at Venture Beat

More importantly, I am a 30 year old, tech glam geek gal, and I have just signed up. Having a retail background, I was very skeptical to join being suspicious of the sign up process, as well as participate in the Style Q+A questionnaire…but I did bite. The results? I was happy with the quick sign up and was very impressed with the style survey. Believe it or not, the survey did actually define my unique preferences accurately.

I also discovered that my style may not just be unique to me. Glam.com have taken the time to tell me that I belong to the LA style (i like) and that they actually have a description for my particular style based on the preferences I chose. More importantly it tells me I that I can buy the wardrobe to create my LA style on Glam.com. SOLD.

This good sign up process. The experience built trust for me by delivering what I expected (which were very high).

For women like me who are frustrated with many bad fashion buys and hard to find loves, it makes me want to be part of this community. It makes me think they are really feel and get my demographic. I think iVilliage is great but its not for Gen Y or those close to the Gen Y, “mediavores” and “techievores” like me…

Here is my style below.. wouldn’t it be great to have my style profile as a widget I can share and show off at places on the web? ***Ha, they do I just needed to click on a little text link under the style copy…would have been a good idea to make it a big icon for me to click on…???

Glam Space is their blog profile network, which is currently going through an upgrade to incorporate Video (although personally, I would not have put that message in the intro on the UI) for Glam Space member homepages I would have placed friends up higher on the right. I also believe the social component to the site needs to be more noticeable on the homepage to get members interacting more and that there is a community happening. But, hey they know what they are doing!

With 30 million in funding they have been around for 4 years. It shows what can be achieved with an injection of a lot of money, a clear strategy and strong focus on innovative advertising and revenue models.

Sorry husbands, more shopping on the web for the ladies in the family. For those moms that have put their fashion style in the washing ‘too-hard’ basket, throw away your target mom tees (me – lol) and jump in and re-start your style, get onto Glam.com for some self-esteem strokin!!!

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

Tangler – the place to get beta feedback

Related Web 2.0

Tangler is a social discussion network that allows participants to discuss topics in real time. Not only is it the site for everyone to discuss anything they want to in a very dynamic way, this is also a great place for founders of Family 2.0 sites to set up a live and dynamic discussion, getting instant feedback about your beta site. It is very powerful to get feedback from a free flowing focus group, some with technical backgrounds to give honest opinions and feedback.

How it works it that you go to Tangler.com and…

1. Sign up to Tangler
2. Create a group Companyname Feedback
3. Create some topics
4. Invite your team so they can talk to the users (very, very important)
5. Install the notifier so you know when someone adds a message
6. Invite some friends to get it started
7. Add a link to the group on your web site
8. Add your product to the Beta Network, create personalized feedback topics

and start getting feedback, some beta testers may also do screencasts, which really make you buzz.

I have just set up one for Refurber our new beta DIY/home improvement site here and there is also a current Minti feedback group as well. What I really like is that you can find out more about the tangler members that are reviewing your start up as well as have the opportunity to clarify any mis-assumptions as well as receive great ideas you may not have thought about before. It’s like twitter on steroids, in terms of the application being real time and the level of discussion you can generate just around your own start up, from usability, to suggestions, to any issues you want.

One thing I would love, is to be able to see other community member profiles and see what they participate in and be able to add them as a contact or follow them, like you can with twitter, if the feature exists I am sure someone will tell me, but if it doesn’t I am also sure it’s in the pipeline ;0)

Ha, within minutes of creating my Minti Feedback topic, my Tangler notifier has a beta tester asking a question for me…cool

I’ve been Tangled…

here’s my profile!

Tags: tangler, forums, discussion, groups, instantmessages, web20, twitter, realtimechat

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.

1. Minti is the first wholly owned vertical for parents
2. Second wholly owned vertical to launch this week sometime
3. Vibe Capital secures a pure licensing agreement with a San Francisco company
4. Vibe Capital’s first equity partnership with Building In London
5. Vibe Capital secures a second equity partnership in an exciting new and under-serviced market
6. 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

Mig33 – raises a cool $10m in the valley

Family 2.0, Web 2.0 related.

Quick early news flash, Steve Goh’s second start up, Mig33 has raised a cool $10m…

What is Mig33? – A social community on your mobile phone. You can socialize from all over the world, roaming where ever you like and hook into Mig33’s community of friends and family at the same time get access to cheap international calling cards.

Clay was at Mig33’s launch pad, coming in second to Grand Central at Etel Conference.

Omalik, blogged about them…

Mig33’s somewhat mysterious yet compelling presentation of its “combination mobile instant messenger and international calling card service” closed the event, leaving folks wondering whether they’d soon be able to IM and place VoIP calls to each other over their cells as they wandered into the hall for the libations.

Over the time I have gotten to know fellow West Aussie, Steven, he is knowledge in this field is staggering.

Here’s more details on Mig33 from Venture Beat “Obscure mobile company Mig33 grows quickly, raises $10M” mentions,”They’re sending more than 15 million messages a day.”

*Disclosure; Clay and I are a small angel investors in this cool app and we wish we had bought more.

AlarmClock – post

tags: stevengoh, claycook, mig33, omalik, projectgoth, web20, mobile20