Disney, which has been busy reorganizing its interactive group, is buying Babble Media, a New York-based parenting platform that features several hundred mom bloggers.

The entertainment giant declined to provide the purchase price for the New York-based start-up, which was founded by aiming at urban hipster parents and has garnered more than $6 million in funding since it was spun off from Nerve Media several years ago.

Babble’s venture investors include Greycroft Partners, Village Ventures and iNovia Capital.

Co-founders Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman and the rest of the 40-person Babble staff will join the Disney Interactive Media Group unit as part of its Moms and Family portfolio, Disney said in its official press release (see below).

Disney described Babble as the “premier blogging platform for a new generation of connected parents.” To me, that roughly translates into Brooklyn-living, Bugaboo-pushing, organic arugula-eating, yoga-calm moms and sensitive New Age dads.

But don’t take my word for it — today’s front page features on Babble include “15 Vegan Recipes for Thanksgiving” and “Is It Selfish to Have One Child?” (Yum and kinda!)

The next obvious stop for its audience, after the kids get a little bigger: Gwyneth Paltrow’s fabulously twee and irksomely addictive GOOP.

But Brooke Chaffin, who is SVP of Moms and Family in the Disney Interactive Media Group, said in an interview that the highly interactive content site with a definite “sophisticated” editorial voice has become mainstream, and is actually where the whole category is going.

“Babble is sharing the experience and stories on a daily basis through the parents lens,” she said. “And it brings in a blog network that is so important to this audience, because it’s by, for and about parents, and that’s far more important for them than experts.”

There will be that, too, said Chaffin, who noted the site has grown 100 percent year over year. It is now up to four million unique monthly visitors.

Disney plans to add its more evergreen family-focused content to Babble, to give it more heft to compete with other similar parenting sites, such as Johnson & Johnson-owned BabyCenter, NBC’s iVillage, Parents.com and CafeMom.

Interestingly, Disney had taken a gander at buying CafeMom a while back.

Chaffin, who came to Disney earlier this year after a stint at Auditude and a long time at Yahoo, said Babble has carved out a unique niche in combining content with social — the current gold ring for a lot of publishers.

“What Babble is doing is best of breed … it is just a different approach to blogging,” she said. “It felt like we at Disney are about storytelling and Babble does an amazing job doing just that.”

Added Jimmy Pitaro, co-President of Disney Interactive Media Group: “Disney has a long legacy of storytelling, and no mom-blog platform empowers storytelling better or more powerfully than Babble. Babble is a strategic complement to our Moms and Family portfolio of sites, which together make up a business that is critical to Disney Interactive’s mission of delivering world-class products and content and growing engagement among our guests.”

In other words: Mainstream and hipster!

Here’s the Disney official press release:

THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY ACQUIRES LEADING ONLINE PARENTING PLATFORM BABBLE MEDIA, INC.

Burbank, California — November 14, 2011 — The Walt Disney Company, through its wholly owned subsidiary Disney Online, has acquired Babble Media, Inc., a leading online parenting platform featuring more than 200 influential mom bloggers. The acquisition of Babble further strengthens the position of Disney Interactive Media Group’s Moms and Family portfolio as a leading online resource for moms and families.

Disney Interactive’s Moms and Family portfolio is a trusted resource for parents today, giving them the online tools and information they need and the ability to share their experiences. Through the acquisition of Babble, Disney Interactive’s Moms and Family business gains a blogging platform that elevates the first-person stories of parenthood.

Since its inception in 2006, Babble has become one of the most celebrated parenting sites on the web, named by Time Magazine as one of the 50 Best Websites of 2010 and by Forbes as one of the Top 100 Websites for Women. Its stable of bloggers contribute daily to parenting topics including pregnancy, child care, health, food, family activities as well as lifestyle topics such as home, fashion and family products. As the premier blogging platform for a new generation of connected parents, Babble has created a vibrant community of parents who support, encourage and celebrate the highs and lows of raising children.

Babble attracts a broad and engaged audience with its nearly constant stream of posts, written for and by moms. Disney Interactive will infuse its Moms and Family evergreen content into Babble, thereby enriching the Babble user experience and extending the best of what Disney has to offer to today’s parents.

“Parents’ relationships with Disney are founded in stories, and Disney’s best stories are about families. We believe that Babble and Disney can harness the power of storytelling to inform, entertain and empower parents everywhere,” said Brooke Chaffin, SVP of Moms and Family, Disney Interactive Media Group. “With more than 3.9 million mom blogs in the US alone, Disney Interactive recognizes and values the important and powerful role moms have taken on in new media.”

“We can’t imagine a better next step than joining the world’s leading media company for families, The Walt Disney Company, and look forward to bringing together Babble’s resonant voice and community with Disney’s expansive family audience, wide range of content and multi-media platform,” said Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman, Co-Founders of Babble.

Babble will remain headquartered in New York. Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman will join the Disney Interactive Media Group.

The Huffington Post Media Group, which says it has topped one billion page views for the month of August, has bought an online grassroots platform called Localocracy.

The price for the site, whose key execs will join the AOL content unit, is under $1 million, said sources close to the situation.

The HuffPost also announced it was hiring Lisa Belkin from the New York Times to be a senior columnist covering parenting and family issues.

The latest hiring and purchase are part of a number of moves at the news and blog site, which has been frantically expanding its offerings since it was acquired by AOL.

That now includes four more sections launching this week — Huff/Post50; HuffPost Gay Voices; HuffPost Weddings; and HuffPost High School — bringing the grand total of new sites to 21 since the Huffington Post officially merged with AOL in March.

“We want to launch sections for every interest and passion our readers have.” said HuffPost head Arianna Huffington in an interview yesterday. “Whatever your interest, we want to provide the latest content and stories and most advanced tools for engagement.”

And, presumably, get the most traffic from it all. Along with the record one billion page views, the site also said it had 37 million unique visitors in August, the largest number it has posted yet, with 5.1 million comments.

Here’s the official press release for the whole kitchen-sink shebang:

The Huffington Post Media Group Makes Key Announcements:

Acquires Localocracy, Pioneering Online Grassroots Platform, and Hires its
Leadership Team: Conor White-Sullivan, Aaron Soules and Jay Boice

Launches Four Huffington Post Sections This Week: Huff/Post50, with Rita Wilson as Editor-at-Large; HuffPost Gay Voices; HuffPost Weddings; and HuffPost High School; Group is latest of 21 new sites since The Huffington Post Merged with AOL in March

Hires Lisa Belkin from The New York Times as Senior Columnist
Covering Parenting, Work/Life Balance, and Family

Announces Record Huffington Post Size and Engagement, with Largest Number of UVs and Comments Ever, and Site Topping 1 Billion Page Views for First Time

New York, NY — October 3, 2011 – The Huffington Post Media Group (“HPMG”), a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information, today makes several key announcements: (1) HPMG is acquiring Localocracy, a groundbreaking online engagement platform enabling citizens to solve problems in their communities, and its founders, Conor White-Sullivan and Aaron Soules, and technology lead, Jay Boice, are joining the Huffington Post Media Group to work on the intersection of editorial and technology, and deepen the sites’ engagement with users; (2) The Huffington Post (“HuffPost”) is launching four sites this week; today, Huff/Post50, with Rita Wilson as editor-at-large; HuffPost Gay Voices; and HuffPost Weddings; tomorrow, HuffPost High School. They are the latest of 21 new verticals since The Huffington Post merged with AOL in March; (4) Lisa Belkin is joining HPMG as Senior Columnist from The New York Times, where she wrote the “Motherlode” blog. She’ll be covering parenting, work/life balance and family; and (5) HuffPost has recently achieved record size and engagement, with its largest number of UVs ever, 37MM*, and greatest number of monthly comments, 5.1MM. In an important milestone, the site also surpassed 1 billion page views for the first time.*

“I’m delighted to announce that Conor White-Sullivan, Aaron Soules and Jay Boice are joining our team,” said Arianna Huffington. “They’re pioneers in using the web to empower citizens to improve their towns, and their unique vision and talents will enable us to deepen our users’ engagement with our sites. We’re also excited to be launching HuffPost/50, HuffPost Gay Voices, HuffPost Weddings and HuffPost High School, the latest sections in our continued effort to provide content, community and a platform for expression for our readers’ every interest and passion. We’re also thrilled to welcome Lisa Belkin, who has built a large following with her writing on parenting and work/life balance issues, and who is a leader in online community building. She’ll be launching her ‘Parentlode’ blog on October 17th.”

Creating and Nurturing Online Communities to Make Lives Better

Localocracy was founded in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2009 as an online forum encouraging citizens to engage in local issues, share concerns and opinions, and rank problem-solving ideas. Its goal was to surface problems and employ the power of persuasion to spotlight solutions to issues big and small. At HPMG, founders White-Sullivan and Soules will build on their innovative approach to enhancing local democracy while leveraging HPMG’s powerful online community platform to engage its large and networked audience. Also joining the Group from Localocracy is Jay Boice, who will be instrumental in building new technologies to support enhanced online community interaction.

Said Conor and Soules: “What we’ve learned with Localocracy is that by harnessing user-generated content, we’re able to unleash a lot of people power. Our methodology is simple: we believe that everyone is an expert about something, so we want to give voice to that expertise and allow an exchange of ideas for all to see and participate in. We’re excited to be teaming up with The Huffington Post Media Group, a leader in social news and user engagement, and look forward to pushing the boundaries of what can be done when combining journalism and technology for the common good.”

Four New Sites; Four New Communities

The Huffington Post Media Group announces today the launch of four destination sites: Huff/Post50 (www.huffingtonpost.com/50), HuffPost Gay Voices (www.huffingtonpost.com/gay-voices) and HuffPost Weddings (www.huffingtonpost/weddings). Each offers HuffPost’s unique combination of real-time news and opinion, and passionate communities powered by a leading social news platform.

HuffPost/50 — whose Editor-at-Large is actress, producer and writer Rita Wilson — covers the challenges, complexities and joys facing the boomer generation, now 77 million people strong. It spotlights boomers who fearlessly tackle new challenges in the spirit of reinventing themselves, regardless of age, and encourages boomers to question conventional wisdom about aging. Topics being covered include: longevity, relationships and sex, politics, the intense “sandwich” pressure of simultaneously taking care of aging parents and children, retirement, spirituality and religion, friendship, politics and dying.

The site is meant to be thought-provoking yet also humorous and life-affirming, and while encouraging boomers to seize the present, Huff/Post50 welcomes reflection and the sharing of hard-earned wisdom. The site is a rare platform for people 50 and older who want to share what’s on their minds. Bloggers on the section include: Bill Maher, ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour, and musicians Ann and Nancy Wilson.

Said Rita Wilson: “The idea that we boomers are somehow supposed to wind things down as we get older completely escapes me. Exploring the minds and hearts of this group of people is exciting. It’s never too late to mix things up, change your life, to get to what you really should be doing — or want to be doing. As Mark Twain said, ‘Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.’”

HuffPost High School, launching tomorrow, is a place for teens to engage with one another about what’s really happening in their lives — socially, academically, and culturally. The site features some of the nation’s top high school journalists and is a dynamic platform for teen bloggers. It’s a go-to guide for everything teens care about, from college prep, the nuances of social networking, culture, and celebrity gossip to high school sports, comedy, politics, the prom and beyond.

HuffPost Gay Voices, also launching today, covers the complexities of the LGBT community, from family and faith to politics and sexuality. The section covers news, culture, and trends, and offers opinion that spotlights all matters of interest to the LGBT community. The site fearlessly looks at powerful yet silent influences on identity and relationships, such as class, race and religion. HuffPost Gay Voices features everything from travel, style and entertainment to politics, personalities and health. Launch week bloggers include Christine Quinn, Margaret Cho and Bruce Vilanch. The Human Rights Campaign is Gay Voices’ inaugural sponsor.

HuffPost Weddings, the third section launching today, has comprehensive coverage of weddings and marriage from all angles, from untraditional wedding cakes and exotic dream honeymoons, to the more practical, including tips on navigating the world of wedding planners, contemporary wedding etiquette, and more. The site will spark discussions about everything from managing the family politics of inter-faith ceremonies and the nuances of gay weddings to the latest proposal video gone viral. And while HuffPost Weddings is meant as a one-stop-shop of advice with a supportive community for those planning their weddings, it also appeals to a wider audience interested in the culture and mores of modern weddings planning, weddings, and marriage. Bloggers on the site include: Heidi Klum; Kelly Meyer; celebrity wedding planners Mindy Weiss, Sharon Sacks, Preston Bailey, and Colin Cowie; designers Nanette Lepore, Angel Sanchez, Reem Acra; and more.

Rapid HuffPost Expansion; Record Audience and Engagement

The Huffington Post’s rapid expansion has only intensified following its merger with AOL in March. The site recorded its largest number of unique visitors per month last month — 37 million* — and also surpassed 1 billion page views for the first time. In addition, HuffPost’s engaged community continues to grow, posting a record 5.1 million comments in August.

With the four sites launching this week, HuffPost will have debuted 21 sections since the merger, all listed here:

• Huff/Post50
• HuffPost BlackVoices
• HuffPost Canada
• HuffPost Canada Living
• HuffPost Celebrity
• HuffPost Culture
• HuffPost Gay Voices
• HuffPost High School
• HuffPost LatinoVoices
• HuffPost Locals: San Francisco, D.C
• HuffPost Parents
• HuffPost San Francisco
• HuffPost Small Business
• HuffPost Travel
• HuffPost UK
• HuffPost UK Tech
• HuffPost UK Universities & Education
• HuffPost Women
• StyleList
• StyleList Home

(*comScore, Aug. 2011)

Last night, BoomTown attended a Silicon Valley book party for Amy Chua, the author of one of this year’s most talked-about tomes: “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”

Online chatter about it–or, more specifically, an essay Chua wrote in The Wall Street Journal related to the book, titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”–quickly rocketed around the Web and mostly not in a good way for Chua.

In chat forums, on Twitter, on Facebook and all over the blogosphere, she was pilloried for her words about raising her children, which included:

Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

As it turns out, even though it surely sold a lot of books, Chua said the badly-titled essay and the ensuing heated debate on the Internet misconstrued and twisted what was meant to be a much more funny and complex memoir about parenting.

Here is an interview with Chua talking about her online experience and book’s heated reception:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110315/grrrrr-tiger-mom-talks-about-internet-frenzy-around-book/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101102/federated-media-snaps-up-bigtent/ http://allthingsd.com/20101102/federated-media-snaps-up-bigtent/#comments Wed, 03 Nov 2010 04:00:19 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36645

Federated Media, the San Francisco-based advertising and publishing network, has acquired BigTent, a platform hosting more than 15,000 communities, mostly made up of parenting groups, especially moms.

Financial terms of the deal with BigTent, also located in San Francisco, were not disclosed.

BigTent has raised $5 million in venture funding from Menlo Ventures and Mohr Davidow Ventures.

In an interview earlier today, FM CEO John Battelle said the move was to further strengthen its tools for both the advertisers and publishers it serves, especially to create better “content conversations.”

Along with leveraging BigTent’s members by linking top brands with the parenting community, the platform could be used by publishers to reach their bases.

This is the second acquisition for FM within several months. In August, it acquired semantic search start-up TextDigger, a platform that allows content owners to include semantic indexing in search.

Battelle said that the additions to FM’s offerings are moving it toward helping content makers and advertisers create more relevancy, well beyond simply serving ads.

“People might look at us as a school of fish, but suddenly realize we are a shark,” said Battelle. “We want to create meaningful interactions on the independent Web.”

The shark metaphor scares me a bit, but it will be interesting to see what FM chomps up next.

Here is the official press release from FM:

Federated Media Publishing Acquires BigTent Platform for Groups

SAN FRANCISCO –Federated Media Publishing (FM), a next-generation media company, today announced the acquisition of BigTent, the leading platform for trusted parenting groups.

More than 8 million parents engage deeply with FM authors, the best independent voices on the Web. Millions more rely on BigTent to stay connected with local school, community and shared-interest groups.

“The combination of our two audiences gives marketers a powerful new way to reach the most valuable consumers online,” said Deanna Brown, President and Chief Operating Officer of FM. “Moms are busy, so they’re picky about where they spend their online time. They read high-quality writing from the best bloggers and they engage with each other in the most useful communities.”

BigTent’s thousands of groups continue to function as they always have, with the same great customer service, and the platform continues to welcome new groups. Each group has its own private, secure social networking environment and a set of tools that save precious time and enrich communities.

“BigTent groups are the social fabric of their communities, and we’re thrilled by the new and better ways we’ll now be able to serve them,” said Laney Whitcanack, the co-founder of BigTent, who is now Chief Community Officer at FM. “With FM, we have a partner who values their voice and is committed to their ongoing support and growth. Working together, we’ll continue to build authentic and meaningful opportunities for major brands to engage with these trusted groups.”

The purchase of BigTent follows FM’s recent expansion of its ability to reach parents online through a partnership with the Clever Girls Collective and the increase in its technical capabilities with the acquisition of semantic-search technology from TextDigger.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101102/federated-media-snaps-up-bigtent/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100412/my-ikid-who-previously-ijacked-my-iphone-also-ijacked-my-ipad-now-with-extra-help-from-his-little-ibrother/ http://allthingsd.com/20100412/my-ikid-who-previously-ijacked-my-iphone-also-ijacked-my-ipad-now-with-extra-help-from-his-little-ibrother/#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:30:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26544

A year ago, I blogged about my son, Louie, in a post titled: “My iKid iJacked My iPhone: A Geek Parenting Tragedy.”

As I wrote then:

“He wants to grab my iPhone from my holster all the time, having become entranced by apps–lots and lots and lots of apps–that now litter the digital pages of my Apple device. DizzyBeeFree and Super Monkey Ball. Touch Hockey and Paper Football. Finger Sprint and MoodPhone. Bounce On and Crazy Penguin Catapult. Lie Detector and Crazy Snowboard. Tic Tac Toe and Hangman. And iChess, iCheckers, iBowl.”

So I was curious to see if he would be as eager to grab the new Apple (AAPL) iPad I just got last week.

The verdict: Yes, and–because of its size–he uses the iPad in a much more social way with his younger brother, Alex. In other words, lots of singing, drawing and playing together in a mobile manner.

Here is the short video I did after they first got their dirty mitts on it, as well as the one from last year, in which Louie ignores me completely:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100412/my-ikid-who-previously-ijacked-my-iphone-also-ijacked-my-ipad-now-with-extra-help-from-his-little-ibrother/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090409/and-i-thought-my-kid-was-an-iphonatic-see-this-video-and-be-scared-be-very-scared/ http://allthingsd.com/20090409/and-i-thought-my-kid-was-an-iphonatic-see-this-video-and-be-scared-be-very-scared/#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:13:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=12062

Earlier this week, BoomTown chronicled my parenting conundrum concerning the fact that my almost-seven-year-old son hijacks my iPhone at every opportunity to play games and more.

Titled “My iKid iJacked My iPhone: A Geek Parenting Tragedy,” it describes the Apple (AAPL) smartphone’s strange hold over him:

“But now he wants to grab my iPhone from my holster all the time, having become entranced by apps–lots and lots and lots of apps–that now litter the digital pages of my Apple device.

DizzyBeeFree and Super Monkey Ball. Touch Hockey and Paper Football. Finger Sprint and MoodPhone. Bounce On and Crazy Penguin Catapult. Lie Detector and Crazy Snowboard. Tic Tac Toe and Hangman. And iChess, iCheckers, iBowl.

Of course, there are also the bubble poppers and light sabers and more cowbells.

And, good lord, how did a “Race to Witch Mountain” app get on there?”

It’s been freaking me out, frankly, until I saw this compelling video, sent to me by an Internet entrepreneur whom I know (and who shall remain nameless), about his even younger son’s iPhone obsession.

Or as this apps-crazy toddler puts it rather strongly: iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiyiiiiiPhoooooooooone!

Here’s the do-NOT-miss video (and below it, for comparison, my little Apple acolyte):

[ See post to watch video ]

Is your kid an iPhonatic? Send me proof!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090409/and-i-thought-my-kid-was-an-iphonatic-see-this-video-and-be-scared-be-very-scared/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20090121/monitoring-teens-facebook-activity/ http://allthingsd.com/20090121/monitoring-teens-facebook-activity/#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:46:02 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20090121/monitoring-teens-facebook-activity/ What is the best way to monitor our teens’ Facebook activity?

To my mind, this is more a parenting issue than a technology one. The easiest method would be to join Facebook yourself and become one of your teens’ ”friends” on each account they have. That might not sit well with your kids, but if you’re willing to be tough, you could make that a condition of their being on Facebook. You could also insist they use the network’s extensive privacy controls to guard their detailed information and activities from strangers.

There is a paid service called YouDiligence that claims it will notify you if certain words appear on a child’s Facebook page. But it requires that you be one of your child’s Facebook friends, so it is mainly a time-saver. Also, because it focuses on words, it doesn’t flag photos or other Facebook activity.

Another paid service, called imView, automatically takes pictures of the screen of the PC your child uses, at intervals you select, and allows you to view these screen shots at your leisure, from any Internet-connected PC. Its maker touts this as a way to monitor Facebook activity. I haven’t tested either of these two services.

I want to transfer my Mini DV taped videos from my video camera to my Mac. But my new MacBook has no Firewire port, which is the only port my camera includes — only USB ports. Am I stuck?

Maybe not. One option would be to see if you can borrow a Mac or Windows PC that does have a Firewire port, convert the videos to digital files on that borrowed machine, and then transfer the resulting files to your new Mac using an external hard disk or flash drive. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to have to do this often.

Another option: A company called Pixela (pixela-1.com) claims to have a Firewire-to-USB cable meant for exactly your situation. It is for Windows only, but might well work if you installed and ran Windows on your Mac. However, a glance at the company’s Web site shows it is out of the version of the cable that works with the North American, as opposed to European, video standard. If you are in North America, you might check with the company to see if and when the correct version will be available. One important caution: I haven’t tested it, so don’t know how well it works.

My computer crashed last fall, and I lost thousands of iTunes songs. I would like to copy all the songs to my new computer from my iPod, which still contains them. However, iTunes allows only purchased songs to be returned. Is there software that would help me?

Yes. There are several utility programs designed to copy the contents of an iPod back to a Windows or Mac computer. The one I usually recommend, because I have found it works well, is called Music Rescue. It costs 10 British pounds, or about $15 at current exchange rates. It can be purchased at kennettnet.co.uk.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

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