The main piece of Gallaga’s story for NPR centered on ethical violations by mothers who blog ‘for’ certain products, or are rewarded and incentivized by marketers then pass along positive feedback about products without full disclosure of the relationship between the author and the product company.

In way this story connects to the larger picture of BlogHer. This is another example of a community site/organization that invites participants in to enable possibilities for the individual (a platform to blog, create, express) and to join with others (be part of a community of others who have similar interests). And yet, there is a financial motive for the organizers. They are taking money  from advertisers as sponsors of the BlogHer site. And the backgrounds of the three women who started BlogHer are women with business backgrounds. As in BIG business. Their story is a similar trajectory of those women and mothers who started communicating online because they were looking for connections they didn’t have elsewhere in their lives,then landed on the potential to make some money off the experience. Or, they recognized the potential market of mothers who might want to communicate and connect with others, and possibly make some money from their online experience. Either way, there is a profit motive that underscores the purpose and placement of this online work.

If there is social or educational or personal value to these sites or individual action, is there a problem? Perhaps it’s not much different that soda companies placing vending machines on a college campus. Their money supports the education but doesn’t influence what is said or taught. If the sites reveal corporate ads and Mommy bloggers come clean when they are voicing opinion on a product they’ve been given, maybe that’s enough. And their words can be monitored for bias.

The other issue is that the presence of parents’ blogging sites has been fostered by business not by education or social service. In part this is true because these agencies have less money and are trying to keep a web presence just to do what they do, let alone provide a platform for their constituents to connect and be creative. But might there also be a fear of just what the parents will say? My colleagues and I spend so much time worrying that everything is accurate and up to date, that the library is stocked with good material, that we haven’t cared to give the readers a place to discuss or share their own thoughts about parenting. Or maybe we haven’t wanted to give them a place for those discussions.

Why? Why the control? Given not only the explosion of interest in online expression by parents, but also places like BlogHer that give parents a place to express and connect, isn’t that control over information – information that is representative of a culture that is changing, albeit slowly – a bit old fashioned? Clay Shirky writes of social media giving people the change to convene without the control. Wiki thought is to let the people determine the content. Be self-corrective, but jointly and collaboratively determine the content. If anything, doesn’t social media give us for the first time a living collective platform in which professionals and parents can voice what it is like to parent, how to parent, and how to do it effectively, sanely and with good cheer?

But what caught my eye on the survey was the list of interests that respondents are asked to identify the frequency with which they seek information online, that included national news, sports and dating, was parenting. Is parenting a category of information used to place people into types, or is it additional information gleaned from the survey that is used in their marketing reports? Probably the latter because there’s no indication in the description of users about interests from that list of 9.

Parents use social media but their responses to the questions on the survey that would type them as users probably have more to do with how much the use of SNS for business purposes (e.g., marketing themselves, networking) and/or for social purposes, and their time and interest in use of technology – as it does for everyone else. Where the parenting piece probably enters is the use of SNS to make contact with other parents they already know (social) or meet others to exchange information about parenting and/or be social (these are not the same thing and can exist separately).

In our discussion there was a bit of a division regarding putting limits on conversation. On one hand we want to encourage users to engage in discussion on sites, on issues of importance to them. The share ideas, opinions and information. To get information. To form social connections with others online. To be part of a community of practice. Yet there were some who raised concerns about liability for the dissemination of inaccuracies, inflammatory remarks, information that might be misinterpreted and lead to potential lawsuits against Search. While I understand the legal concerns, at the same time I am curious about the impact of placing limits on conversation.

In Clay Shirkey‘s writing about the future of the internet and the ‘new socialism’ he talks about the power to convene but not control through social media. That institutions should enable not be an obstacle. And that we should build systems so that all can contribute. The conversations that people will have will be self-corrective, in that the group is mold and monitor the content (the wiki phenomenon). And probably most important, that we are experiencing chaos in the opportunities afforded by social media tools and that this will continue for 50 years while we are undergoing a massive readjustment to the use and potential of these tools.

So, while I understand these concerns about liability, I am wondering if there isn’t some safe ground that can be created that will permit and encourage free discussion. That the discussion not be limited to or led by the certain few with appropriate opinions and ideas, or who practice ‘safe speech’, but open to all and encourage a public dialogue. Isn’t this what monitors and posting policies are about? What is the role of experts in the open conversation between parents and about parenting?

Might a site like PatientsLikeMe be a model to follow?

This is not an issue reserved by parents, of course. But parents deserve forums and the ability to freely discuss.

The bottom line of parenting is survival and well-being of family members. Anything that helps them do that better, faster, more efficiently and wherever they are is a good thing.

What other apps do you know of that are helpful for parents? Very likely the game features have gotten parents and their kids through long car rides and waits in the dentist office. Standard apps like weather, movie times, maps and a restaurant finder can help with the day to day and managing life away from home. Translators, dictionaries, books to read on the iPod have educational value, as do the ability to listen to music and the wealth of podcasts. Apps like tracking stocks and noting purchases work for family money management.

So, parents can use iPod apps for entertainment, educational enrichment, daily life management, emergency assistance, record keeping, instant information, social connections and messaging via apps like facebook and gmail. Mobile family life management and information.

Trying to keep up are nonprofits and educational institutions that offer sites for parents. The interest isn’t commercial; it’s educational. They want parents to be more knowledgeable, feel more confident about their parenting skills, have a sense of resources to turn to – particularly reputable resources  – and possibly even behave in more competent ways. But often the limited resources result in site that are not competitive in terms of features, or graphics. What they have going for them is really good information. In fact, a lot of time and effort is spent ensuring that what is conveyed online is accurate, research-based, and reputable.

But when parents go online, what do they want?

• Do they want a one stop parenting site that allows them to connect with other parents, get information that answers their parenting questions, enables them to upload pictures of their cute kids, shop and play games?
• Do they want a parent as person site that provides parenting information but also provides information, resources and connections about other parts of their lives like work and health?
• Do they want a really good source of information without extras like opportunities to upload pictures or have a social profile.

It probably varies with the individual parent, and the amount of time that they have to give to their time online, the sources of information they use to answer their parenting questions, and what they want to do online besides get information – and where they want to do that.

Is an answer in how much a parent identifies him or herself as a parent while they are parenting? For instance, if parent-identified parent might go to a site like CafeMom to talk about parenting and about lots of other things. A parent who doesn’t necessarily see his or herself that way might go to Facebook or a general interest site like iVillage.

That might be presuming time spent on single sites. How site-loyal are parenting users? Do they have one or two that they go to with any frequency, a whole lot of bookmarks, or just do a general search when they need information?

Marketing surveyors like CafeMom and Pew conclude that it’s ‘different strokes for different folks’ . So should the well-meaning nonprofits go for the one size fits all tact, pack their sites with many features to grab as many users as possible, or aim for a market segment they most want to reach?

MomTV features ‘channels’; sort of a way to categorize and find postings on topics of interest. There is a search engine, which seems to be sorely needed. The site feels cluttered; almost like lot of parents (mothers) talking on many issues at the same time. So a feature that helps users find what they are looking for (listen to the opinion they seek) is important. Like Momversation there isn’t an expert or authorities, though there are featured bloggers and videoposters.

A few thoughts:

• There would seem to be three primary reasons that mothers/users would come to this site – to gather information, to find a group to make psychological and possible social connections with, and the opportunity to post videos related to parenting. Sites like these need to make it easy and enjoyable for users to do all three to maintain an audience, given the growth of other online presence.

• Case in point: The search needs some help. I entered the term ‘child care’ (child care being a common interest, parents looking for quality indicators, wanting to talk about problems at or with their provider, wanting to vent on the cost, or gloat about how wonderful their provide is…). A top hit was for a video from a mother discussing weight loss techniques.

• The site doesn’t seem to be geared to a particular demographic yet at this point many of the posts seem to be from the same generally narrow-ish group of mothers as Momversation (white, well-educated, tech-savvy, youngish). A search ‘lesbian’ came up empty. Similarly the term ‘African American’. Conversations seem less value laden (a search for the word ‘gun’ – discussed over at Momversation – also came up with nothing). But a site that is primarily driven by user contribution, that encourages and grows with the interests of its users, may find itself skewing toward a more representative demographic over time. Meaning that either it will retain a narrow reach, it will move in a new direction, or it will expand (a la facebook). That’s interesting to watch.

• Some of the channels have abbreviations that are a little confusing – like SAHM and WAHM. To me, anyway. If I considered myself a member of either group, maybe I’d known. As it was I needed to open the ‘channels’ to see some of the link content and do a little cognitive processing to figure out that they stood for ‘stay at home mother’ and ‘work at home mother’ respectively. The segmenting is understandable and the abbreviations may be either or both a need to fit the category into a small box and avoid the loading these terms might carry.

Clearly there is value for individual parents to have forums to make contributions of their parenting knowledge and experience, to have outlets for creative expression, to make social connections to like others, and to learn from their peers. But a question to pose to sites like Momversation and to MomTV is – it is necessary to segment parenting by gender through these online platforms? Can whatever is being accomplished here be done better by speaking and reaching out to mothers only? What do women have to gain by talking to each other about parenting? Is what they get from these interchanges better or different than if they were more inclusive of fathers? Do sites like these encourage women to share stories of their whole selves and therefore assist in the development of self as well as parent? Are they better suited than other women-oriented sites like iVillage or More to this task (get the mother, then talk about the woman v. get the woman, then talk about mothering)?

From a parenting standpoint, do mothers learn and are helped to become better, happier mothers if they talk to each other via sites like these than if they went to more parenting-general sites like parents.com or social network sites like babble.ning.com?

It’s important to answer those questions because, for the good that they might be doing for the individual mother who contributes to the sites, and for the shared information and support that is offered from mother to mother, sites like these also may be contributing to the stereotype that women are better caretakers than men, or that women are supposed to be the primary caregivers to children. Frankly I’m leery of any of these sites that are backed by publishing or other marketing efforts, because although they present an information and social exchange forum, they may be doing this at the expense of maintaining social and not constructive conventions. Which may be useful to advertisers, but not to a more equitable society.

At the very least, I’d suggest that they rethink the color scheme on MomTV.

• fairly high production value videos (“episodes”) of site specific mothers discussing certain parenting topics. I just watched one on diversity in schools. It featured 3 of the mothers discussing diversity and it’s importance to them as parents, and how they achieve it for their children. The video is followed by a thread of comments from readers, some single comments, others in dialogue.
• forums on a whole lot of issues, parenting related, but also on relationships and other major topics. The actual number of replies varies greatly, as with any forum thread. In some cases no responses, in other cases (e.g., breastfeeding in public) many.
• a blog with discussion topics of the day. Some of the topics include copied text from an identified source. Recent topics include dealing with money (tips included), tweets about what mothers are procrastinating about, and why being a mother isn’t so hard. This must be the educational section, rather than opinion or discussion because the comments to the posts are very minimal.

What is interesting about the ‘episodes’, besides that they include a short unavoidable ad from Target, is that they feature 3 or 4 of the site mothers sharing their views on a given topic.  A positive is that they touch on important issues, such as views on keeping a gun in the house (and from the number of comments, this was controversial). What value is there hearing the opinions of women who are just, well, people? There seems to be care to present a range of views, which alone is valuable for stimulating discussion.

Readers don’t need to hear from experts, do they? Might this be a place for experts to simply join in and share in the dialogue?

So there are opportunities for discussion and dialogue on a range of issues related to parenting, family life and relationships (even expressing views on celebrities). The site employs high production values so the viewing and reading are easy to do. And there are places to get information, advice and tips, found through browsing and through a search.

Yet there seems to be a fairly narrow market for this site: fairly well-educated, partnered, heterosexual women. Clearly more time is needed on the site to give it justice. But the flavor of the video episodes (I watched 3 of them) seemed that they were presented by higher SES women who were articulate, opinionated, and savvy with a web cam. And comments from readers seemed to echo these traits.

And yet, here’s the bottom line: Momversation is a carefully crafted media piece supported by advertisers. Here’s their press page: http://deca.tv/category/press/momversation-press/ The developers’ plan is to corral a diverse segment of readers on one site, noting the value of their following and interest in certain bloggers:

With Momversation, DECA created a one-stop video shop for advertisers trying to connect with multiple mommy-bloggers (and their followers). “You take the best bloggers and put them under one roof, and then an advertiser can reach the entire cross-section of their audience—different ethnicities, different geographic regions and different points-of-view—with one sponsorship,” Wayne said.

Unlike other websites like Babycenter.com, for example, readers on Momversation pretty much discuss and listen to conversation. Another tip off to the demographic of interest: readers who are more interested in conversation than shopping, playing games about baby names, or posting pictures of their kids. So, a pretty literate group. This must indicate market research that indicates site use preference differences.

What Momversation doesn’t have are ‘experts.’ Someone is choosing which content to include in the blog section. That includes Bethenny Frankel as worth quoting on nutrition and feeding because she a) is a minor reality show star and b) wrote a best selling book on staying thin. At least in publications like Ladies Home Journal pediatricians like the Sears’ were paid to present information. And an interest in providing reasonably accurate and timely information for readers meant that the writers carefully researched topics, drawing on reputable authorities.

The real value of Momversation may not be the accuracy of the information, but in giving readers a place to listen to issues being discussed and take part in conversation – a place to be heard and to listen to others, who are like they are or who they want to be. This audience may not need a site that gives them accurate, expert information because they are well read enough that they have those sources (online and off). The site must be tailored to readers who need a substitute for the preschool parent meetings with other women just like themselves.

So why do parents blog? And who blogs? Specific answers aren’t easy to answer since there’s not a lot of research out there (at all?) on parent blogging behavior and psychology. It probably to do with blogs being an outlet for self-reflection, identity formation and personal expression via instant publishing. It also encourages social connections and information sharing, from parent to parent.

Let’s take the last one first. Without question the range of online social media tools (like wordpress.com for instance) make creating a blog possible. No going through publishing houses, reviews, outside editing. Online publishing also looks professional (no artistic talent needed) and the message goes out to many or few as desired. Photos and videos of the kiddos can be easily added, links to albums, YouTube, other blogs, Twitter and facebook. Whatever and whoever. Quick and easy and efficient.

So why not? Well probably because of access to computers (and here we’re especially talking about time which parents don’t have a lot of), interest in pouring one’s thoughts and soul to the world, and knowledge and confidence with maneuvering around social media.

For those who do, blogging is a way to share views about parenting, vent about experiences, seek information from others, share news that might inform other parents – so blogging is a way that parents make and maintain social connections, deepen their understanding and knowledge about parenting, reflect on their experiences and their personal identities (forging the old with the new). Check out Dooce, for instance. Heather just had a baby. Through the act of writing about those experiences and reflecting on her thoughts and actions, the context, the reactions of others in her life, she is enhancing what she knows and learned about herself as a parent.

Marineau and Segal’s* (2006) article in Child Welfare notes the value of critical reflection as an important aspect of parent identity development. Citing Dewey that experience is given meaning only through thought, they note that self-reflection through critical dialogue permits the conscious attention to values, assumptions and beliefs. This is enabled through the process of thinking about and writing publicly about personal parenting experiences, and maintained through online discussion.

Publishing experiences and thoughts online contributes to the social construction of knowledge about parenting, exposing the parent to others’ views and reinforcements, validations or criticisms. What value is there to online communities in this social construction v. those parents know in person? Do they fit complementary roles? Or is their value dependent on the individual parent’s exposure to others, or personality needs for social reinforcement? This smack’s of Mon Cochran’s theory of personal social networks and parenting and the role of personality in network formation and maintenance.

Although we can discuss (and I will) about social support, information exchange and networks through online engagement and parenting, the function of self-authorship online is something different. It is one thing to be part of a group. It is another to have a significant individual presence and forum online, which is what blogging can do.

So much to ask and explore: Are there certain time periods of parenthood in which blogging is more valuable? Considering Galinsky’s stages of parenthood,  when parents have infants and are in the nurturing stage might blogging be motivated by sharing feelings of joy and contentment with the world? Or as the child gets older and discipline and guidance issues take root, and parents assert authority yet at the same time begin to question their competence, does blogging help them to vent their frustrations and seek advice from others?

And what of the parents who blog regularly and those who attend to online matters as a participant yet not an author (save a facebook profile or twitter account)? What might it mean for personal expression for the parent who takes the time to author and maintain an online presence about parenting experiences and insights?

* Marienau, C. and Segal, J. (2006). Parents as developing adult learners. Child welfare, 85(5), 768-784.

In these pages, we’ll explore these new technologies, current events related to parents’ many uses for their personal expression, sharing, learning and growing, how families are using technology for communication and connection, and what this all means to the profession of parent and family education.