Nick Cifuentes

You figured it would happen at some point - social networking sites are popping up for conceivably every market demographic - and now a social networking site for babies has made its way to the market.  

Totspot.

This amazing feat of success has brought Totspot into a place where they might find a profitable niche.  

The service that is built on Ruby on Rails, just went through a private beta test and is now open to all parents and babies to take part in.  This Facebook for children platform allows babies (probably their parents) to enter their favorite nickname, book, food, etc…

Totspot, which as accumulated 15,000 users, is part of an social movement into the ‘newborn’ realm of social networking.  Odadeo, Lil’ Grams and Kidmondo are also some growing social networking sites for parents to spread updates of their newborn babies.  

For quite a while, Facebook, and photo websites like Flickr and Photobucket, among others, have been popular places to track a baby’s progress - things such as a first step, first pictures and video at the zoo, first time eating an oreo cookie, and so on.

Some might say that the business model is flawed and after the age of four or five, the website will not be able to be used.  I say that is NOT TRUE.  Take a look at this comment from a gentleman named Justin Fleming on a story TechCrunch ran on Totspot in March of 2008:

“Sounds like a good idea but the 4yr age limit will probably kill it. First that means that you don’t want to join since you can already see a limit, second, what are you supposed to do when you reach the 4yr limit? Just say, “thanks for all that and see you” and never come back?”

I think Justin is obviously not thinking too much when it comes to comments.  I think the first advantage Totspot has is its look - being built on ROR and having that very friendly branding design behind it - it keeps users interested.  Also, it acts as virtual scrap book that most likely will be online for if not ever, pretty close to it - as long as the company does not go under - which I doubt it will - (but you never know).

Parents, I am sure, will push their kids to use the product as their child gets older.  You have to make the connection - pretty obvious.  If you have a parent who bookmarks every event of their child’s young life on a social network, it only make sense that at some point they will ‘hand it off’ to their child to maintain and update and become interested.  I am certainly not a psychologist, but I think making a small assumption there is quite obvious.  

Let’s Be Honest.

The baby market is ever-growing and there is no real down season when it comes to baby-making.  

The ability for the this company to utilize online and direct partnerships, as well as implement online advertising methods - will keep a nice revenue stream for a small, but growing organization.  And chances are, depending how large Totspot gets, becoming acquired at some point down the line is pretty obvious prediction if Totspot does it right.

One thing critics might attack is the safety and privacy issues of ‘exploiting’ your baby online.  But, thanks to advanced privacy settings and the options to befriend who you wish - the network seems extremely secure. 

Some advanced settings that Totspot offers besides allowing parents to choose whom they invite to view and share information with about their child, they even have a feature that allows users to track who has visited their child’s Web page and when they did so.

I think the idea is great. Part of me says that because I am a social media junkie. But most of me states this from a branding and marketing aspect that is clearly putting them ahead of the game right now - although fellow competitors exist - I think none of the products have pushed ahead to take the top spot when it comes to social networking for children - but at some point - one will, and I think Totspot has a great shot.

Let’s just hope they don’t end up like this: