Here’s an excerpt:
Once Michelle Villalta of Massapequa started a page for her 2-month-old twins, Cole and Emma, she said she realized how remiss she’d been in recording her 16-month-old’s milestones. “I don’t remember when he did anything,” she says of Tyler. But now, she can easily record Cole’s and Emma’s firsts on their page, because she’s frequently at the computer anyway, she says.
And the sometimes overlooked point of view of our grandparent users:
“What are you, kidding? I love it,” says Maddox’s maternal grandmother, Laurie Allison of Barnegat, N.J. “I play the videos constantly whenever I just want a little cheering up. I could follow my daughter’s life, too, because she writes all her comments on there about what happens. It’s really great. Especially when he’s not around the corner.”
Larry Rosen, author of “Me MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation” was also interviewed for the piece:
[He] called TotSpot “a phenomenal idea. It does what the Internet is supposed to do - which is to find ways to bring people closer.”
It also helps parents to understand what social networking is all about - in preparation for the days when their now-babies will become 7- and 8-year-olds who want to play on their own sites, such as “Club Penguin.” “There is so much fear that has built up around social networking,” Rosen says, which this can help to dispel.
Check out the full article.
As we get closer to our launch (soon), we want to be doubly sure that your experience using TotSpot matches your desires and goals when creating a TotSpot page for your child (or children). To make sure we understand those goals properly, we thought the best idea was to ask:
When building a TotSpot page, what is your most important priority, and why?
- A. Providing the latest updates and information about my child
- B. Creating a “showcase” that expresses my child’s unique personality/life story
- C. Providing a place to interact and connect with others (wall posts, comments, graffiti, tickles)
- D. Other
Obviously, our goal is to ensure that these pages are multifaceted, but nonetheless, it is really important for us to know what is the primary motivation that inspires you to build a TotSpot page.
As always, thanks for the help.
P.S. We’re giving away a free, brand-spanking-new, really really sweet, TotSpot T-Shirt for our favorite response…
We had two wonderful little write-ups crop up today, and as your typical attention-loving tot, we thought we’d point them out.
MomsGroupManual, a new blog by Jessica Smith, says,
Totspot.com is a great example of a thoughtful social networking site for parents. It is very easy to navigate and inputting the information and photos is neither complicated nor time consuming. For a busy mom like me, this is very important.
Meanwhile, over at MommyDoodle, Melanie announced that she’s closing up shop at Blogger to bring her son’s content full-time to TotSpot:
I was thinking about the Totspot service because it was so private…I love the graphics and ease of use. It’s free, fun, creative and eyecatching.
These posts will soon find their way to our media page, where we like to highlight things that have been said about us. We’ll also continue to put some of our favorite excerpts (even some critical ones that we agree with) on this blog as well. So if you’ve written about TotSpot or are planning to, drop us a line!
Thanks again to Jessica and Melanie; be sure to check out their blogs and their tweets on Twitter as both these moms are putting out some great content. 
