Yet Another Social Networking Site for Moms?

MTV Networks is adding new members to its family. The network has acquired Babunga, a network of niche sites on parenting. With this acquisition, MTV further expands its presence in the parenting segment and ventures into the expecting mom category with sites such as BabyNamesWorld and 3dPregnancy. Back in 2006, MTV had launched ParentsConnect.com, a parenting portal and social networking community. According to Mediaweek, MTVN had originally created ParentsConnect as a Facebook-like environment for moms and dads and recently revamped the site to offer a more portal-like navigation and editorial with a distinct Nick voice.

The new ParentsConnect Network will include polls, personalized profiles to allow parents to connect with each other based on their location, ages of their kids, interest, etc, and features such as ParentsConnect Local, which will serve as a guide for parents on kid-friendly things to do in their area.

We may argue that the blogosphere is already too crowded with social networks catering to mothers and parents in general. Run a Google search for "mom blog" and you will get almost 7,000,000 links. Why come up with yet another? And do moms have time to read more than a handful on a regular basis? These may be valid arguments. However, a combination of consumer brands and names we recognize and our kids love, localized content, the ability to interact and network, ads that mom will actually click into and a large budget to rest upon may all help make the new ParentsConnect a success.