When Micheal Broukhim of Totspot.com joined me for a recording of Technology Gazette back in June 2008, I noted to him that the idea of his company which is exactly the same as Keepaboo.com was an interesting play on parent’s collecting memories of their child’s younger years. It would almost be a little concerning to some children as they grow older knowing that their parents may have collected so much incriminating data about them in an online portal, I find it bad enough with the physical photos of me in the younger years but to know that parents would be storing this data online which would have an infinite longevity did unsettle me a little.
However, Keepaboo.com continues Web service trends of mapping out all of your newborn’s life in an online scrapbook, their exact reasons for why you should use their service read as follows:
- Record Milestones
- Add Pictures to your area
- Track Growth of the Child
- Save Quotes
All very interesting, yet quite unique ways of documenting a child’s life but all incredibly sentimental to many parents. With these web services I believe it is a matter of allowing the parent to make note of specific events and moments very easily, this would require minimal effort to provide them with a long lasting journal of everything to do with their child growing up.
A nice addition to this service, that I don’t believe Totspot.com has is the use of a 3-D “LifeBook”, there is a sample book made up on the homepage (of course with them being very smart there is no direct link to the sample book), however check the homepage and you will see the link “View Sample Book”. It transposes key events in a child’s life incredibly well and I feel that the short exerts of text below each item highlight the meaning of a picture very effectively (however, one commenter at the Mashable.com review didn’t seem too impressed)
However, one key feature I felt Totspot.com caught onto well was the use of VIDEO! This feature is so critical to making a service feel more real for the parents or whoever they share the information with, video brings alive those precious moments and goes one step further for many on conveying just what happened. Even if it’s a short 30-secs clip it is important all the same.
And of course what have the promises of Totspot and Keepaboo got in common, privacy! There is going to be nothing more important to parents then to know that any pictures, videos and text clips they put into the service are kept safe and out of the reach of people not designated to use the account. It will also be important for the child concerned because the internet is a vast arena and things get shared around in an instant, I can see this being a tough challenge for both companies but one that I am sure both of them hold as the highest priority.
Here is what others around the Web have to say about Keepaboo:
