Archive for December, 2008

Moms Provide Seasonal Advice

Published December 16, 2008 Uncategorized 1 Comment

The number of topics being discussed in Circle of Moms is amazing! As fast as they ask questions, other moms provide answers. With the holiday season upon us once discussion caught my attention:

What is the best way to have a Christmas tree with a toddler in the house? And how do you keep little fingers from opening gifts?

Here are some of the best ideas:

  • use unbreakable ornaments
  • put stuffed ornaments at the bottom within the child’s reach
  • one mom is going to decorate her tree with Christmas cards!
  • put a fence or child’s gate around the tree
  • use a smaller tree & place it up on a table out of reach

For the gifts there was also a number of suggestions:

  • one mom buys decorative boxes & uses packing tape
  • many suggested not putting the gifts out until within a day or so
  • use the playpen to put the gifts in

You can read all of the ideas here.  What are your best ideas for safe & happy holidays?

Calling All Moms!

Published December 10, 2008 Uncategorized 2 Comments

Circle of Moms enables moms to connect in new and unique ways.  We have over 2,000 communities that cover a number of different topics, including some that we could never have dreampt up ourselves. The positive response to our product has been overwhelming and we are always looking for moms who are interested in getting involved with the Circle of Moms movement.  If you want to help build the community or our business (and have a background in sales or marketing), please contact us.  We would love to hear from you.

But back to our communities…here are a few of my favorites.

Some are traditional.  We have Stay at Home Moms and Working Moms.  Single Moms and Moms with Great Husbands.  Toddler Moms and Moms of Kids in College.  Playgroups for moms of children born in the same month.

Others are a little more unique.  A few of my favorites are: Moms Whose Husbands Work the Oilfields.  Gun Toting Mamas.  I’m sure there are more, I just can’t think of them.

Take a look at our communities and let us know if you want to be involved.

Advice on Parenting and What Gifts to Buy

Published December 7, 2008 New Features 3 Comments

We want Circle of Moms to be a community that moms use to make their lives easier.  After reaching out to lots of moms tofind out what they wanted from a community, we found that  two of the most common responses were:

  • “I have this situation with my family and I am not sure what to do.  I want to talk to other moms who have been through it themselves.  Help!!”
  • “I want to buy and use the right products for my child and there are so many choices out there.  I’m not sure what the safest and best product is to buy.  Can you help?”

Of course there are many other issues that are important to moms, and we will try to build features to address them in the future, but for now we are very focused on these two challenges.

I have this situation with my family and I am not sure what to do.  Help!!

You told us that when you have a question about parenting or family life, you value the opinions of other moms. So we created communities to let you  connect to different groups of moms depending on the situation.  Since we can’t think of every type of community you would want,  we also set it up so that you are able to create communities so that you can find other moms out there who are sharing your experiences. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to ask questions, so we placed a question box on the home page.

Not only do you want to talk to other moms, though…you want to talk to the right moms.   That is why we added the profile feature.  Profiles let you get to know other moms, where they come from, how many children they have and what other advice they have provided to moms.  This means that the replies you receive are not anonymous posts to a message board, but personal advice from other moms.  You can choose which advice to listen to and which advice to ignore.

I want to buy and use the right products for my child and there are so many choices out there.

What is cool?  What is safe?  What do you know about <insert product here>?  Does it taste good (usually about baby food)?  Where can I buy it?

These are some of the most commonly asked questions in Circle of Moms.  We want to enable you to help one another.

With the holidays approaching, these questions focus more and more on the right gifts for kids.  So we thought that a good place to start was Christmas and Chanukkah gifts.  What do moms think is the right gift?  What’s good for a toddler or for a pre-teen??    I’m thinking of getting something and I want to know what other moms have to say about it.

This is only the beginning, though.  Please let us know how we can improve this!

Our Question to You

Does Circle of Moms help you address these challenges?  What else do you want to see in the product?

Welcome to Circle of Moms

Published December 7, 2008 Company News Leave a Comment

Today, we are excited and proud to unveil Circle of Moms to the general public.  We have come a long way in the past six months.  After speaking with moms across the country and running countless interviews and focus groups, we launched our product at the beginning of October.  Since then, our community has grown to a size well beyond what we expected and is thriving and vibrant.

Our goal has been to create an online community that connects moms and enables them to face the challenges of motherhood together.  We realize that the product that we have built is not perfect, but think that it is a step towards this goal.  We try to listen to you, our users, as closely as possible, so that we can build something that you truly find valuable.  What features are working?  Which ones aren’t?  What can we do to provide a more complete experience for you?

So please reach out to us.  Let us know what you think.  It can only make our community better.  We look forward to getting to know you.

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