More 411: shades of gray
Before I get into the fun world of website review, I want to point out that the internet is full of this color called gray. In that gray area, we have a websites that have been created by entities interested in giving people resources from a variety of sources. For parents this could be some sort of experts: doctors, financial managers, physiologists, physical trainers, etc. I see these kinds of websites as the “Big Guy” of parenting resources.
Examples: Babycenter.com, WebMD.com, iparenting.com, and let’s not forget parenting.com.
Also found in the gray area are sites that bring people together to collaborate in their parenting experiences. With their online avatars and bios they discuss what makes them good, bad, pretty, or ugly parents… all in the hope that one day their experience will be the lightbulb that helps another parent somewhere in cyberspace. These kinds of sites can be summed up in the about page of one of my favorites, Minti.com: parent to parent advice-opedia (of which Minti is the largest).
Examples: the aforementioned Minti.com (tell them mrscrumley sent you!) and Clubmom.com. There is even more gray area here because some of the “Big Guy” sites include sections with parent to parent interaction.
And finally, the third part of the gray area are the ever popular blogs that seem to pop up every second of everyday. Blog building doesn’t even take a holiday!
Parent blogs are a bulk of what I like to read on the internet. I appreciate the candidness that parents talk about their family lives, their children’s habits, successes, and even their faults. Parents who write about their families online are very brave and are also offering a service to the internet. While they aren’t sharing it in a parent to parent format, they are still sharing. Some aren’t very technically savvy, some are still using the basic template that blogger offers, and some have created beautiful places to hang out using their words and HTML skills. Parent blogs are special, and while they are resourceful, I don’t want to include them in my actual reviews. I will be featuring blogs on this site (also a blog), but in a non-review format.
I know there are more shades of grey in the spectrum of the internet, but off the top of my head, those three are what I will probably be covering. I also reserve the right to sometimes feature or review sites that may not have the target audience of parents, but they could be a resource if you used it correctly.
See you Monday, when we will start with Babycenter.com. (Here is some disclosure: I use this site a lot. So I thought I would start easy.)
