Acquisitions in the social networking space continue. This from paidContent.org…
The baby and mom-focused BabyCenter, owned by J&J, has made its first acquisition in its 10 years of existence: it has bought Maya’s Mom, a Palo Alto-based social networking site for mothers. Last year MM raised angel funding from some high profile names, including Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, Yahoo exec Jeff Ralston, Tickle founder James Currier, Presto’s Raymond Stern, Wink’s Michael Tanne, angel investor Jeff Clavier and True Ventures. MM describes itself as a cross between Yahoo Answers and Facebook. It is centered around the asking and answering of questions related to parenting.
The Kelsey Group reported today…
LiveDeal announced that it will integrate community discussion boards to its classifieds engine.
Seems a new mom-focused social networking website pops up every week lately. I know Gannett has one in our area through it’s newspaper. And a grocery vertical I learned about recently is providing its client grocery store chains with just such a tool. I’ve heard good things in the past about the DC Moms Yahoo Group. Now today from Greg Sterling…
Mom-oriented social network CafeMom just received $5 million in funding and BabyCenter, which I just wrote about, relaunched the site with many more social media features.
Women and moms are are the intersection of a number of important online phenomena, including social media and commerce. They are the most influence and important audience when it comes to transactions.
Front Porch Forum‘s approach is to help mom’s in a neighborhood get to know one another so that they can then talk in person, form toddler playgroups, babysitting coops, etc. And plenty use their FPF neighborhood forum for direct “looking for a babysitter” or “stroller for sale” type postings. Since most mom sites are about connecting with strangers, why not do the same with a group in your own area? And actually get to know them… in (gasp!) person? And no need to limit it to just females… I love taking our little ones to the neighborhood playgroup.
The Kelsey Group reports today…
Peter Horan, CEO of IAC Media & Advertising, gave a speech entitled, “What’s Local ReallyAbout?” He said that we are “now in the second decade of local: So much promise. So much logic. So little progress. How come?” His answer was that we are in the age of Internet-driven media where local isn’t about reading, it’s about doing.
Peter told the audience that the litmus test for local is usefulness, but he went on to describe the issue that has been facing city sites since they evolved from being mere bulletin boards hosted by a techie in a community. He called this the Grand Canyon of local – the trade-off between efficiency and effectiveness. Few media are able to bridge this gap. In order to keep costs down, city sites need self-service, low cost of sales and abundant promotional coverage at very low prices. But to meet the needs of consumers and advertisers, they require such high-expense items as a strong sales force, unique content and broad market coverage. Under Peter’s leadership, Citysearch is well on its way.
I read this to mean that few local websites have figured out how to continually crank out enough quality content to attract a sizable audience while keeping expenses in check.
Our early findings indicate that Front Porch Forum may well be an engine that can drive a local site. We have tremendous traffic (nearly 25% of our pilot city subscribe… word of mouth) and people love it. They go door-to-door to recruit their neighbors. The expense of moderating the neighborhood conversations is modest, but not the web 2.0 dream of zero… nor should it be. Plenty of other local online services could be hung on FPF as the core… it’s what people come back to weekly, even daily.
Professor Keith Hampton‘s research about neighborhood email lists seems to support this.
Jason Fry, in reviewing FloorPlanner.com in the Wall Street Journal, concludes with…
The Net makes exploring the world and engaging with it easy in a way we’re only just getting used to. Within a few keystrokes, you can be digging into the news, indulging your curiosity, or foundering in an obsession or addiction. Practically speaking, you can communicate with most anyone you wish whenever you wish. And you can do so at a remove — step away from the PC, or just hit the back button, and your engagement ends.
That remove can be a wonderful thing. It lets us indulge our curiosity almost as quickly as we can think, makes it easy to drop a line to someone we might not feel like we have time to call on the phone and allows us to be part of a community that may be too diffuse for real-world interaction.
The danger is that interacting at a remove can come to seem preferable to the messiness of the real world, where a greater commitment is required and interaction demands more of ourselves than it does in our compartmentalized worlds of browsers and digital personas…
David Weinberger pointed out this passage in his blog posting today, and talks about the value of “what if-ing” via the web. My first thoughts go a different way… Some would argue that too many people are checking out of their local reality to spend time in virtual worlds online, television fantasy and the like. It’s one thing that makes Front Porch Forum such a different experience for people… FPF draws you into your local scene… people become more involved with the neighbors and community around them through the service.
Julia Lerman touched on this when she rates FPF vs. Facebook and the like from her global software development perspective.
Municipal libraries are a cornerstone of local America. While they’ve been hit hard by budget cuts in many locales, they continue to play vital roles. So I was pleased to see Front Porch Forum treated well today by Charles at Dewey and Main.
Many small town librarians participate on the FPF neighborhood forums in their towns. They post announcements about programs and new books, as well as address specific issues that come up in the various neighborhoods. And, I would guess, they learn a bit about what’s going on around town and use that information to shape what they provide.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more