Parenting

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  Posted by nj Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:51am PDT

  I'm a web designer so I'm on the computer all the time and I think because of that I'm careful about how much I send in email because I hate getting "spammy" emails from people I love - because I can't block their email address! :) I think it's the people who don't spend a lot of time on the computer who tend to forget etiquette.

  My family doesn't have any concept of what a blog is so I have a tough time getting them to go to our family blog to see photos, stories, and such. I ended up setting up Feedburner so that they automatically get an email (opt-in of course) each time I post to the blog. This way they get the emails they want or they can opt out and just go see the blog when they want to. This way too, I don't have to remember who to email and risk leaving someone out.

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  Posted by WhiskeyChick Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:06am PDT

  How would you suggest I handle being on the receiving end of such over-the-top baby update email campaigns? In other words, what is the appropriate way to say "While I enjoy keeping up to date on your baby's progress, I cannot handle endless emails with every picture you've shot in the last week every week."? I have some friends who I have kindly suggested online photo albums, social networking sites, and yahoo groups to but still I get that dreaded email of pictures that were never shrunk down to an appropriate email size or sifted to show only a small handful of favorites. Thanks!

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  Posted by Gabriella R Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:57am PDT

  When my son was born I was worried about this -- I wanted to let everyone know the basics, and see pictures if they wanted to - and spare myself the chore of answering two hundred "Is he ere yet? What did he weigh?? Send us a picture!" emails. But I didn't want to become a spam mom either.

  I found two things useful: Flickr, for photo sets containing only the best handful of pictures (and giving me the ability to just include a link to the photo set in my email) and a GoogleGroups announcement-only listserv. I'm pretty sure Yahoo has something like that too -- that way people can anonymously unsubscribe without offending you, and defnitely don't end up with all the repy messages from other friends.

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  Posted by adamjk17 Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:09pm PDT

  Great post. I think segmenting your audience is probably the most important concept you identify. Making sure only the people who really want to see your child get photos/videos/etc. is the way to avoid any sort of "spamminess."

  That said, segmenting isn't easy and my hunch is most parents are naturally biased (why won't my friends want to see Jamie throwing snowball after snowball?). The ideal is probably some sort of mutual opt-in/opt-out approach where friends have a say. At least that's what we think at TotSpot.com (just a bit of self-promotion ;))

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  Posted by James from BabySpot.com Mon Mar 31, 2008 1:03pm PDT

  This is funny! This is the exact reason my wife and I needed a solution. When my first son was born "Danny" we pretty much were sending updates to our family and friends weekly. My wife went a little over board with the pictures, imagine a first time mother with a digital camera!! WOW Can they take pictures...lol. This is when BabySpot.com came to life! My personal solution for the new Moms and Dads! Don't forgot the Grandparents!!! No more spamming your families inbox. One profile url says it all.

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  Posted by TLRS72 Mon Mar 31, 2008 1:23pm PDT

  I know the person in this article ( no, not really... or do I?). I have a friend who really thinks her kid is a lot cuter than she actually is. She mass emails EVERY Monday with at least 15 photos of the kid on her weekend. Most are extremely uneventful, an unappreciated. For the last 4 years, we've known about every burp, fart, poop & vomit episode ... complete with any corresponding photos that the Mom seems to think we need to see. Okay, maybe a photo of the first dance recital ( we got hit with an actual email of the video!!), or of a birthday party.. but please draw a line somewhere! They even have a website for the kid, so why they don't just email and say "hey, we've posted some new photos if you want to go look" is beyond me.

  I've always worked by the philosophy that no one else will really think as much of my kids as I do, so I just refrain from bombarding folks with them.

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  Posted by wannabeskinym Tue Apr 1, 2008 5:16am PDT

  I'm a new first time mom of a 2-month old and instead of emailing like it is described above, I post my albums on facebook. That way if people want to see them they can but I'm not constantly emailing them to everyone. And it makes it easy at work, too as I can just open up my album when someone asks to see pictures of my child.

  Outside of that, I do end up sending pictures to my parents when they ask, but that's about it.

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