Last night, we showed off a first look of the soon-to-be-released beta for Lil’Grams.  The crowd was packed at SF New Tech’s Spring Jubilee! event.  Special thanks to Myles Weissleder for the opportunity to demonstrate the results of our hard work for the past 2 years to an audience of friends and technophiles.

I’ve come to the conclusion that no demonstration is complete without at least on “Oh Crap!” moment.  During this presentation, that came when I completely lost track of time before even getting to show the newsletters and baby book that Lil’Grams produces.  I blame the clock for going to fast! (photo credit: Ken Yeung)

The first 5 minutes were spent demonstrating all the easy ways Lil’Grams lets you get photos and videos online (at the moment that includes web, email, twitter, and desktop). Fortunately, there were many inquisitive folks in the audience and they helped tease out some of the even cooler parts of the system.   It’s hard fitting 2+ years of thinking and development into 5 minutes – no matter how finely tuned your presentation.

We’re truly humbled by the wonderful feedback and comments we’ve received.  Here’s just a small sampling:

• khartline: Alright…I may just have to make a baby so I can try @lilgrams. Its pretty awesomesauce! #sfnewtech #justsayin
• nancycole: @gregarious has the audience clamoring to have a bunch of kids @ #sfnewtech w his lilgrams!
• dpmoore: #sfnewtech: http:/www.lilgrams.com. Easily organize/share milestones, pix, video about your kids. I could really use this to update family.
• nipj: Tip for all tweeple parents, from #sfnewtech, check out lilgrams.com . well thought out, elegantly designed memory sharing and mgmt srvc.
• quepol: checkin’ out @lilgrams. cuz it’s making @khartline wanna make babies. :) also, it does look pretty cool.
• rrwhite: So glad to see @lilgrams is finally launching. A pretty kickass app for families to share the latest info on their little ones

Very special thanks to the tireless Jolie O’Dell who made it up from Palo Alto to see the demo and capture some footage for StartupLucky.  Last night, I don’t know how she managed to write this up, but she did:

With great breadth, depth, and versatility (compatible with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc., and with email, web, and desktop apps currently available and an iPhone app right around the corner), LilGrams is uniquely poised to take over the Gen Y parenting market.

Simply put, LilGrams allows parents to upload and share information and media of/about their infants (and soon, children) across many social platforms. Interested parties (friends, relatives, etc.) can opt-in to receiving updates, choosing the medium and frequency of these messages, including photo prints.

Source: Jolie O’Dell, “San Francisco New Tech: LilGrams Live Demo”

Thanks once again to you all for your continued support and affection.

For some time know, I have been looking at the shifts in social bonds as a result of social networks.  The outgrowth of Facebook, MySpace and a number of similar services has us re-evaluating things we traditionally understood without ambiguity – like friends, groups, interests, and status.

My good friend Brian Solis has an interesting post today that discusses some of the changes that are happening.  As Brian writes in “Micro Disruption Theory and The Social Effect“:

“Relationships are so much more than the mere act of following or friending someone on Twitter or any social network for that matter. It’s the balladry of transcending online connections into real world relationships. It’s the cadence of interaction and the poetry of conversations that empower the human network and the escalation of the Social Economy.

On Social Networks we’re bound by context and not necessarily by the relationships that link us in the real world.

Source: Brian Solis, “Micro Disruption Theory and The Social Effect“

I think it’s an interesting notion that we’re bound by context.  I think that this is true at the most basic level – there is a general sentiment about the venue through which we network.  Social networks are marketplaces of intention.  Daters flock to online dating sites in search of relationships, LinkedIn caters to the business professional, Facebook caters to, well that’s not that simple anymore to provide a single context – but friendship seems a suitable bucket.

I think, however, that we’re just scratching the surface.  Our networks are being bastardized in lots of ways.  We glom together everyone into one pool and then we’re overwhelmed with having to deal with it all at the same time.  In our real lives, we are capable of maintaining many granular networks of individuals.  We’ve moved past the differentiation of social networks (see Social Networking Differentiation 2.0, June 2006) but there’s still quite a bit left unsettled.

It seems we’re ready for the next phase of differentiation – where micro actions are aggregated back together to resemble real things.
I’ll use an analogy to better describe just what I think this looks like.  If we imagine our network of relationships as a home, the foundation is made up of those real, physical relationships that we have with others.  Right now, we’re on the ground floor – where we welcome new people at our virtual front doors.  With time, attention, and enthusiasm, those same guests on the ground floor are invited upstairs: they’re the friends that come to visit from out of town, that make your home their own home.

The second level of relationships I call Affinity Networks.  They are truly contextualized networks of friends and family and other individuals that you care about.  Brian nails it when he points out that “We listen to relevant keywords to learn from others who share our interests and passions.”  Truth is, however, that those are just directional pointers to the individuals that are seemingly important or relevant.  Beyond that initial interest, it takes a great deal of interaction and discovery to actually forge real relationships that last through time.

Affinity networks differ in that they don’t deal with the people connected but instead with the subject at the core.  That “subject” may be a person, place, or thing, but everyone gathered shares a bond to this central concept.  Affinity networks allow us to re-constitute all the micro actions and gestures and give us focus again on those trends, themes, and individuals that mean the most to us.

I’ve often noted that as much as technology provides us new ways to reach out to more and more people, further and further away, it’s our nature to seek out the solutions that mimic or engender closeness, touch.  Seems we’re ripe for something new.

Last night we presented lil’grams for the first time publicly at the Web Innovator’s Group sponsored by MSFT and VenRock Capital . The event is put on by VenRock’s David Beisel who invites three unfunded startups to present to a group of non-paying attendees as the “Main Dish” and several more as “Side Dish” presenters. We were fortunate to be selected as main presenters (posting here) along with a shopping cart solution and ad-content manager.

At the outset, we expected 200 or so folks, which would have been great. When we showed up, David said he expected 700-800, and when the crowd showed, it was standing room only and probably closer to 1000.

I gave the background and overview of the app, then jumped into posting from the web, email, and the new desktop application.  I quickly showed the Baby Book off and our e-mail templates.  There was one small “oh crap” moment – Gmail was bugging me for the password so my mail demo broke – oops :)

The reception was pretty solid, although we came in second in the crowd-vote for best presentation [some say it was rigged :) not us]. Ranvir and Adarsh manned the booth along with some of our friends and loved ones. We met a bunch of very cool people and got a lot of support from the Boston web community (Thanks to Beta House and WoodGroove)

Here’s a sample of the reaction tweets:

• josephflaherty: “Lil’grams was my fave at #webinno. Photo sharing targeted towards people with kids. No new tech, just a REALLY nice UI and service setup”
• MassHighTech: Dave Beisel on Lil’Grams: “That’s a slick interface’ … and the interface works on anything, not just baby photos.”
• jvyduna: “Love Lil’grams at #webinno – my favorite demo. Nice UI.”
• MassHighTech: “Standing room only at #webinno. Lil’Grams got hoots ‘n hollers. Online baby photo sharing service…Crowd fave among the parents here”

See them all here.

I woke up this morning to a surprise tweet point me to an article on the New York Times site.  As the page appeared, the title “Twittering from the Cradle” showed up and my interest was naturally peaked.  As I read through the article, I encountered the names of many people and products that I recognized well.

A natural disappointment swelled as I assumed that my beloved, Lil’Grams, had not made it into another piece covering a space we entered oh so long ago.  Then I saw it, and realized just how wrong I was.

Call it convenient. Call it baby overshare. But a host of new sites, including Totspot, Odadeo, Lil’Grams and Kidmondo, now offer parents a chance to forgo the e-mail blasts of, say, their newborn’s first trip home and instead invite friends and family to join and contribute to a network geared to connecting them to the baby in their lives.

“It’s an interesting model,” said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist for the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “Everyone can decide how much or little they want to know about a baby, which avoids the situation of receiving a few too many e-mails about someone’s wonderful child, and parents can decide how much they want to share — in minimal or maximal ways.”

Now I can’t tell you just how happy I am to be where I am right now.  Building Lil’Grams has been a challenge in a number of ways.  Professionally, it is a testament to our ability to understand a problem and create a solution that means something to the audience it serves.  Personally, it’s been a personal challenge filled with highs and lows, tears and fears.

We’re about a month away from the big reveal.  I’m looking forward to bringing our efforts out to the world at large.  We’re still making a number of important decisions about how things will work and what will be in the final release (we have more than we planned).

Until October 22nd, from Delhi.