Kidmondo

Another level of privacy

Daniel — Fri, 14 May 2010 01:15:28 +0000

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!

All on One and One for All

Dad — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:52:27 +0000

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

The helpful aunt

Dad — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:48:29 +0000

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

Your privacy and your data

Dad — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:26:46 +0000

The internet has been in a uproar over the last week with regards to Facebook’s latest changes to the privacy settings (read more about it here and here). When a company as large as Facebook makes such a dramatic change, it causes to a major ripple effect in the industry. We wanted to address this as it applies to Kidmondo.

One of the reasons we founded Kidmondo was that we really couldn’t find a compelling way to chronicle and share news about our kids with family and friends in a safe environment. The privacy of our child’s information is of the utmost importance to us. In fact, that is one of the reasons we do not offer a ‘public’ journal. All our journals are secure and password protected and a user must be invited by the parent to see their child’s journal.

This is a key feature of our service and one we do not intend to change going forward. We realize that when you sign up for a service –especially a service like ours– there is a leap of faith in terms of trust. We just wanted to reiterate that we take your privacy very seriously and that your child’s data is your own. We are only a temporary caretaker. Be safe.

Before the Baby

Dad — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:45:28 +0000

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

One users surprise announcement

Dad — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:43:21 +0000

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

Staying in touch

Dad — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:31:17 +0000

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!

The easiest way to update a journal

Dad — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:48:37 +0000

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.

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.

¡Hola e Ciao da Kidmondo!

Dad — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:45:56 +0000

We are happy to announce that Kidmondo is now available in both Español and Italiano!

You can change you default language on the footer of any page or in your settings page. The language is specific to each user, so don’t worry about confusing your English-speaking friends. We hope to roll-out more languages in the coming months and would love to know which ones you want.

It's our Birthday!

Dad — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:18:58 +0000

It’s hard to believe that 1 year ago, today Kidmondo was born. The first year has gone by so quickly. Kidmondo has grown so much, made so many new friends and even learned a few things

As it’s parents, it has made us very proud and we hope it will continue to grow along with the Kidmondo family. Thanks to everyone who has supported us through this adventure and be prepared for some exciting new features coming soon.

To quote our kids, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIDMONDO!”