Social Networks for mums - the new ‘idea du jour’
Reading the latest issue of NMA today, there’s a little piece about Mothercare owned social network Gurgle signing a deal with MSN to provide content for MSNs Life and Style channels. With over 250,000 unique visitors per month and 500,000 registered users, Gurgle does seem to have gained quite a lot of traction in this space and i’ve noticed quite quite a few competitors cropping up. Here’s a few…
I first stumbled across this about a year and a half ago, shortly after its launch. Developed using the open source php content framework Drupal, the creators seem to have attracted a fair amount of users and have even branched out - adding Fathersclick and Momblognetwork to their suite of sites. It seems to be mainly aimed at a US audience though, so looks unlikely to get much of a say in the Irish market.
The big bad new boy in the schoolyard, CafeMom has seen insane levels of growth since its launch in 2006. Claiming to have over 120 million page impressions per month to 6 million visitors per month, it was ranked as the 7th fastest growing site in the world in 2007 by Compete.com. Like a Myspace for mums, it has groups, photo sharing, and heaps of other great content to keep its users happy.
Oddly, the slogan of this site is ‘We’re not perfect, we’re parents’. Owned by the Nickelodeon network, the bubble gum style design seems to be aimed more at kids than their parents. It’s a bit bulky and colour heavy compared to its competitors, but i’m sure their offline media outlets will help them push traffic.
With a name more suitable for a chewing gum brand, this is one of my personal favourites. It’s clean, has shedloads of content, and the registration process is fuss-free. The photo sharing element of the site is very popular with proud mums, and the prominent ‘find stuff’ searchbox at the top of the site is helpful.