Website of the Week: 12/4/2009

Baby Connect

A new web site and iPhone application provides parents, baby-sitters, nannies and other day care professionals with an opportunity to track and share information about the children under their supervision.

Baby Connect, which was launched in September of this year, is the brainchild of Xavier Launay, a software engineer based in the San Francisco area. "The idea of the application surfaced a few years ago when our second child was in daycare," says Launay. "My wife and I were anxious to know what was happening during the day while we were at work. We wanted to know everything – poops, naps, playtime, is he happy, is he bored – but we had to wait for the end of the day to find out."

With Baby Connect, caregivers can provide automatic and immediate updates via the web. Feedings, naps, milestones, diaper changes, even the baby's mood and playtimes – all this information can be logged and forwarded to authorized users via e-mail or Twitter updates.

Baby Connect is not just for anxious parents. The daily log can be invaluable if more than one care giver is involved, or if a child's feeding, sleeping or other daily routines are being monitored for medical purposes.

Baby Connect allows users to track as many babies as they want, which makes it ideal for nurseries or other commercial day care facilities. Updates are easy to enter, as care givers can select from over 50 built-in activity descriptions. You can even upload GPS locations or photos to reassure concerned parents that their child is safe and happy!

All the data collected by Baby Connect is password protected. Sensibly, Baby Connect only asks for the baby's first name and e-mail addresses of the authorized users. No other identifying information is required.  

Baby Connect is free, although Launay hopes to add some optional subscription-based services in the future, such as analytical tools to better utilize all the data that can be collected. The iPhone applications are available for one-time fees of $2.99 for Baby Connect and $0.99 for BabySitter Connect. A full demo of the Baby Connect application is available at Baby-Connect.com/demo.