Private beta invitations have started to roll out today. Welcome to the select handful in the door. We know our work has only started, and we’re looking forward to your feedback. Feel free to comment on this thread with initial impressions.

Everybody else, stand by. Your invites are coming soon!

Nothing is more important than your kids. Here are 3 reasons to trust TotSpot with your most treasured content.

1) It’s a Private Page -

We will always protect the privacy of your account. Our default privacy setting will always prevent anyone from seeing your kid’s page unless you explicitly invite them. As we evolve the product, we promise to always to do so in such a way that will ensure the privacy of your family.

2) Your Kid, Your Content -

We will never claim ownership to the content you add to TotSpot. It’s you kid, and therefore, it’s your content. We are committed to data portability. Wherever possible, we will create ways for you to take your content with you to other sites (through the ability to download original copies of your content and through our forthcoming API) or off the internet entirely.

3) Put it Online, Get it in Print -

We want to make chronicling your child’s life easier, not harder. The last thing you want to do is keep a separate online scrapbook and an offline one, or to upload pictures here and still have to go elsewhere for prints. As we continue to grow TotSpot, we promise to offer a full array of printing options so that you can use TotSpot as a comprehensive solution for sharing the life of your child.

As content gal for Totspot, I’ve been well… checking out the content for the sort-of, beta launched Totspot. I am lovin’ this product. I immediately created a profile for my daughter Dylan and picked a theme for the page. The themes are outstanding. Fun and cool. Just like me. Oh, I mean my daughter. As for her picture… I was almost sad to see that cute baby icon disappear but Dylan’s face is pretty fab too.

Then I typed in her status: Sleeping. Gosh, kids are so beautiful when they sleep - aren’t they? No whining, no trashing the house, no tantrums….

Back at Totspot, I entered a journal entry. I put in some memorable quotes. Toddlers say some pretty hysterical things but the next day, you can’t quite remember how they phrased it. So this is a simple way to capture and save very fleeting memories.

I filled in some of Dylan’s profile. I adore the color palette for picking eyes and hair color. And it’s fun to put in her favorite things. My 3 1/2 year-old has some weird habits like sleeping in her little sister’s sleep sacks (size 12 months). I have no idea how she zips herself into those things but my god, she does it. So these are the kind of things I want to remember and hold over her head when my sweet tot turns into a teenager with an attitude.

The timeline is super cool. Totspot really feels like a hip, groovy Facebook for kids and frankly, I think it’s brilliant. Well, that’s why I got involved in the first place. And I love the quotes!

Everything is very user friendly. If you’re familiar with any other online social network, it’s all extremely intuitive. Plus, I love the clean, uncluttered look.

I did run into a few hiccups as I navigated the site:

• Although the site said, “my baby status was updated”, the information was never displayed anywhere. Under Dylan’s name, it simply said, “say something pithy” so I think there might be some kinks to work out there.

• Dylan was referred to as a boy even though I had entered “girl” under the profile.

• After I uploaded Dylan’s profile picture, I wanted an obvious button to direct me back to the dashboard.

• Under favorites, there is a blurb under “History Matters”. It say “….. not only Dylan’s new favorites but how they came to be.” I didn’t quite understand that last part. Perhaps change to “…. not only Dylan’s new favorites but also her former faves too”

• I put in the wrong birthdate for Dylan and couldn’t figure out how to edit. Just so you don’t think I’m a complete space cadet, her birthday is the same day as my anniversary (different year thank god) so it’s a mistake I make often when I’m multi-tasking.

• The site said I had 5 outstanding invitations but I couldn’t figure out how to access those invitations.

• Most urgently, I would also like to see an easy link to start a new profile for my other daughter Summer. I think parents want one username and password for all their kids.

I’d write more but I actually have to go take care of my kids. Can’t wait to start on my daughter Summer’s profile. - Kelcey Kintner

Fred Olivera just announced the TotSpot launch on the Webreakstuff blog, which makes it a perfectly fitting time to introduce Webreakstuff to the TotSpot audience.

Webreakstuff is, basically, a group of geniuses. Based out of Coimbra, Portugal, they are technical team responsible for building TotSpot. Adam and I spent 3 fantastic weeks with them in January and couldn’t be more enthused about their ingenuity, commitment, and really, sheer brilliance in putting this together.

You’ll get to hear more about and from the Webreakstuff team as TotSpot continues to grow, but for now we just want to make a public and hearty thank you to Fred, Tiago M, Tiago P, Pelf, Fabio, Gui, Socrates, and Gil.

A bit earlier than expected but always welcome. Besides the traffic, the best thing about TechCrunch is the comments. For the most part, posters are respectful, insightful, and really interested in what you’re doing. Pro/con, we encourage you to check out the post and comments.

In addition, we wanted to engage the discussion (centered principally around audience/data portability/privacy) and posted some our own thoughts. They’re reposted below:

Thanks Mike for the post. Just a few quick thoughts on the discussion so far:

1) We’re not only targeting new mothers, but new fathers as well. TotSpot is neither about mom nor dad, its about the kid. We think thats one of our differentiators viz-a-viz sites like Maya’s Mom, CafeMom, etc.

2) “Social Network” - well, kinda.

We’re actually thinking about this more as a social publishing tool; initially, we’ll be more about giving parents the tools to publish securely about their kids, then we hope to evolve more of the social functionality around that.

@3 made a good point that “most things you want to share with “normal” people without kids who wouldn’t be on that site.”

That’s why we’re going to have multiple account-types on TotSpot and ways in which family/close friends can view and contribute content (so, Max’s Uncle, can add photos of Max if you want him to).

3) A few of you brought up issues of privacy, content ownership, etc.

Privacy is key: Parents can limit their content to only the people they want to share with.

We also make no bones about it, the content you upload is yours. We are big fans of the Data Portability Project and will be doing our best to incorporate standards there and elsewhere. We expect to both make it very easy to bring content into TotSpot from existing web services (Flickr, Picasa, Youtube, Vimeo, etc.), and, through an eventual API, make it very easy to take your content with you.

Update: Digg it. The TechCrunch post has been dugg.