Kidmondo has always taken privacy seriously. As parents ourselves, the privacy of our child’s information is of the utmost importance to us. But for some users, our privacy wasn’t enough. A few asked that we build the ability to make a diary post that is private, only visible to parents (well, editors to be exact). So we did.

On the create a new diary post screen you will find a checkbox, that when selected will make your post visible only to editors.

On viewing these posts are designated a Private to editors and are invisible to everyone else.

One user wrote in saying that this feature brings an added benefit of acting like a ‘draft’ status for the post as well (I love how our users keep finding new and interesting ways to use our tools). Enjoy!

In this entry in the series on how our users have found new and creative ways to utilize Kidmondo, we would like to highlight one mom who built a journal partially inspired by the three musketeers.

All on One and One for All
We originally designed each of our journals to specific to one child. It makes things easier to track their about page, growth & dental charts, medical/food journal and so forth. But sometimes, parents don’t necessarily want to have a journal for each child, since most of their kids adventures happen together. The good news, is that Kidmondo supports that as well.

One mom wasn’t really interested in in tracking each child’s specific details so they turned their Kidmondo journal a great Family blog. Her main concern was the keeping her children’s data safe from the prying eyes. Her journal chronicled her children’s adventures and she was able to share it with only those close to her family.

Our privacy features will keep your children’s information safe. Best of all, since we make it easy to customize your Kidbook, you can always print our a beautiful keepsake with only the sections you use.

Have a story of your own you wish to share? Let us know, we would love to hear them.

Want to read more clever ideas? See part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4

For our third entry in the series on how our users have found new and creative ways to utilize Kidmondo, we would like to highlight a proactive aunt, who lent a helping hand to the newly and exhausted parents.

The Helpful Aunt
While the new mom was still recovering in the hospital from a long labor, her sister (new baby’s Auntie), who also happens to be the unofficial family photographer (you know how every family has one) decided to surprise the new mom and dad.

She went ahead and created a Kidmondo account, filled up the child’s About page and all the birth details, uploaded a bunch of photos and videos, and documented the entire first two weeks (you know, the most overwhelming time for a new parent)… all without telling the new parents.

Once things settled down, she sent the parents an invitation (granting them editorial control, of course) to their newborn’s Kidmondo journal. They were really surprised and gladly to take over the editorial duties of the baby book.

Have a story of your own you wish to share? Let us know, we would love to hear them.

Want to read more clever ideas? See part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4

In the second part of our series on how users find new, creative ways to utilize Kidmondo, we would like to highlight how for one user Kidmondo wasn’t just a baby journal, but a pregnancy journal as well.

Before the Baby
While Kidmondo is mainly known as an online baby journal or a place to host your babies first website, many of our users also use it as a pregnancy journal, since it comes with everything they need to track their pregnancy: milestones, photos of sonograms, a medical and food journal, etc. When the baby is born it then becomes an easy transition to a baby journal.

What makes this particular story interesting, though, is that in one case the mother built a ‘kidbook’ just for her pregnancy. She wanted to keep it separate from her soon to be babybook. Great thing about it, is everything worked like a charm!

Want to read more clever ideas? See part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4

We continue to be enamored and impressed at how you, our users, find new and creative ways to use, extend, and build upon our service. Over the last couple months a few examples have come to our attention which we wish to share with all of you. We hope that you will find these both useful and entertaining.

As we have a few of these stories, we will be serializing them over the next week. If you have any of your own stories to share, we would love to hear them.

The Surprise Announcement
Let’s start with one that you may have already read on our twitter account. I have to say that when we first heard it, it really took us by surprise. One clever mom used Kidmondo to tell her husband that she was pregnant. They already had an Kidmondo journal for their first child, so she simply created a new one and invited her husband to connect. He told us, that it took him a minute to figure out what was going on (hehe).

It was really sweet of them to share this story with us. If you have a story of your own, please let us know!

Want to read more clever ideas? See part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4

Earlier today the Kidmondo homepage went down an was no longer available for a short period of time. That said, all journals were still accessible if you went to them directly via their custom urls, eg. [name].kidmondo.com. Obviously, with our homepage down, we couldn’t put up any sort of announcement. We were able though, to alert users via Twitter.

We use Twitter a lot, to talk about the service, things that interest us, and general announcements. If you aren’t following us already, I would recommend that you start by following us on http://twitter.com/kidmondo.

If Twitter isn’t your thing, you can also find us on Facebook by visiting http://www.facebook.com/kidmondo.

Hope to see you there!

Kidmondo recently launched the ability to email stories and photos directly to your child’s journal from anywhere. If you are out and about, snap and picture and email it from your Blackberry, iPhone or any other smartphone. Each email become Diary posts, while the photos are automatically added to your Gallery.

We have made it incredibly simple, all you have to do:

1. Write an email and attach any photos you would like to upload to the child’s journal. The Subject field of your email will be the title of the post.

2. If you have multiple journals (you can skip this step if you only have one journal) you will need to identify which journal you want to update by adding the ‘@’ sign followed by your child’s first name at the start of the subject field.

You can even send the email to more than one journal at the same time by including multiple names in the email.

3. Send the email to: UPDATE @KIDMONDO.COM

All done. It’s that easy! Your child’s Kidmondo journal is now updated.

Sign in and go to your Setting/Email page to learn more about this new feature.

We are really proud of the simplicity of this new feature and how it helps parents on the go.  There is no easier way to keep your child’s journal updated.

A user sent in this tip:

I am due to deliver next month and I just started using Kidmondo am using Kidmondo to track the pregnancy. We have already decided on the name and I just put the due date as the birthday. I have been scanning in the sonogram pictures and posting photos of my belly growing…

We love to hear the different ways you are using Kidmondo. If you have a tip, let us know.

A user sent in this tip:

I originally signed up to use Kidmondo for my 3 month old. Soon afterwards I decided to create a journal for my 4 year old as well. One day as I was populating his journal with old stories, my son came over and started peering over my shoulder. Seeing his name and some pictures of himself, he realized I was writing about him and wanted to know what I was doing. I told him that I was writing ‘his story’ and started reading him some of the entries. He loved it! Now, almost every day he asks for another story ‘on him’. I can’t write them fast enough!

I just wanted to say that Kidmondo isn’t just for newborns and is also a great tool for older kids who are able to enjoy it themselves.

– Sarah

Thanks for the tip!

We love to hear the different ways you are using Kidmondo. If you have a tip, let us know.