Mom Central review: Mamapedia.com.
[Note: This post is part of my participation in Mom Central, "a one-stop web resource dedicated to providing busy moms with smart household and parenting solutions." In exchange for my honest thoughts on Mamapedia.com, I will receive a $20 Amazon.com gift card.]
When you've got a son whose bedtime musings are about why the capital of Australia is Canberra and not something more centrally located, it's nice to have the Internet as a means of keeping the mama stock value as high as possible. On more than one occasion, I've mused that I wouldn't know how to parent my, uh, inquisitive children without Google. But sometimes the Web's "wisdom" can be too much; when it comes to finding a dentist or looking for the most durable brand of boys' jeans, I want info from people who've been there.
That's where Mamapedia comes in. It's still in beta, but I can see the potential, particularly for moms who find their online network a bit slim or far flung. At this point, it's broken up into major categories, such as Kids by Age, All About Me, Health, Finances and House & Home, and the content comes from everyday moms in the trenches.
Like most other sites these days, they've got ads along the side, but they aren't overly intrusive and are tailored for mothers. (Is anyone else as sick of the ubiquitous "muffin top" ads on just about every other website?! Ugh.) And of course, you'll want to take any advice, particularly about health or finances, with a grain of salt, but that's true for just about anything you read online.
What I like most about Mamapedia's setup is the way it doesn't overwhelm the reader with the answers; you can minimize or maximize the responses, and it has a list of highlights along one side, allowing you to figure out more quickly which answer might be the one for you. The answers run the gamut from thoughtful, multiparagraph (and spell-checked) replies to shorter responses of "Am I pregnate?!?!?" caliber, but there is a lot of wisdom contained on those pages. Check it out, and be sure to offer feedback (there's a feedback button on the upper right of most, if not all, its pages), so Mamapedia can find out what mamas need most.
When you've got a son whose bedtime musings are about why the capital of Australia is Canberra and not something more centrally located, it's nice to have the Internet as a means of keeping the mama stock value as high as possible. On more than one occasion, I've mused that I wouldn't know how to parent my, uh, inquisitive children without Google. But sometimes the Web's "wisdom" can be too much; when it comes to finding a dentist or looking for the most durable brand of boys' jeans, I want info from people who've been there.
That's where Mamapedia comes in. It's still in beta, but I can see the potential, particularly for moms who find their online network a bit slim or far flung. At this point, it's broken up into major categories, such as Kids by Age, All About Me, Health, Finances and House & Home, and the content comes from everyday moms in the trenches.
Like most other sites these days, they've got ads along the side, but they aren't overly intrusive and are tailored for mothers. (Is anyone else as sick of the ubiquitous "muffin top" ads on just about every other website?! Ugh.) And of course, you'll want to take any advice, particularly about health or finances, with a grain of salt, but that's true for just about anything you read online.
What I like most about Mamapedia's setup is the way it doesn't overwhelm the reader with the answers; you can minimize or maximize the responses, and it has a list of highlights along one side, allowing you to figure out more quickly which answer might be the one for you. The answers run the gamut from thoughtful, multiparagraph (and spell-checked) replies to shorter responses of "Am I pregnate?!?!?" caliber, but there is a lot of wisdom contained on those pages. Check it out, and be sure to offer feedback (there's a feedback button on the upper right of most, if not all, its pages), so Mamapedia can find out what mamas need most.