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Saving the story of your kids: Notabli app launches version 2.0

Rick Martin 2014.03.07

Regular readers of The Bridge will remember that I’ve raved about the Notabli app before. It’s an app that lets parent save their children’s moments, in a space that’s private, shared with only friends and family members of your choosing. When I had my first kid, I really wanted a way to share photos with my family back in Canada – but likely many people these days, I have reservations about sharing too much information about my child on Facebook [1]. After a brief flirtation with Glassboard, I eventually settled on Notabli. It had a very easy data export feature that I can use anytime, which I think is key for any sort of memories archive like this. In addition to photos, Notabli has support for video, audio, and even quotes. When you add a moment to your child’s timeline, you also have the option to mark it as a milestone. Obviously, this is an important feature for parents who want to mark things like baby’s first tooth, first words, or first steps [2]. Version 2.0 of Notabli has launched today with some key new features, including a new audio recorder with a very handy trim tool (pictured below), auto-location…

Regular readers of The Bridge will remember that I’ve raved about the Notabli app before. It’s an app that lets parent save their children’s moments, in a space that’s private, shared with only friends and family members of your choosing. When I had my first kid, I really wanted a way to share photos with my family back in Canada – but likely many people these days, I have reservations about sharing too much information about my child on Facebook [1].

After a brief flirtation with Glassboard, I eventually settled on Notabli. It had a very easy data export feature that I can use anytime, which I think is key for any sort of memories archive like this. In addition to photos, Notabli has support for video, audio, and even quotes. When you add a moment to your child’s timeline, you also have the option to mark it as a milestone. Obviously, this is an important feature for parents who want to mark things like baby’s first tooth, first words, or first steps [2].

Version 2.0 of Notabli has launched today with some key new features, including a new audio recorder with a very handy trim tool (pictured below), auto-location tagging for moments, and a more streamlined video/photo picker. I’ve had a chance to test an early 2.0 beta, and I’m really happy with the new additions – but even more delighted that everything I love about v1 is still there!

Notabli's handy audio trimmer — Notabli’s handy audio trimmer

I got in touch with Jackson Latka, the co-founder of Notabli, who is based in Vermont along with fellow co-founder Jory Raphael. As a new father myself, I started off by asking him about how he manages to balance startup life as a parent, something that I find myself struggling with sometimes. He explains:

What’s worked best for me is to embrace the ebb and flow as much as possible. I don’t feel the traditional take on work-life balance works well for me, so I aim for work-life harmony. Some days require a lot more work than others, but same goes for family. The irony is not lost on me that I often spend my time working on a product to bring families closer together, while spending less time with my own wonderful family. I’m still working on this challenge.

One of the things that has mildly concerned me about Notabli is that it is free. This is one of those rare free services that is so good, you’d gladly pay to help ensure its longevity. So I asked Jackson about their choice to make Notabli a free app instead of a paid one:

We wanted to make sure we built a solid, dependable, and valuable service for Notabli users before monetizing the service. […] We can’t live on free forever. We have some cool things planned for our premium service/purchases.

This is encouraging, because I really want Notabli to be around for a while, hopefully never suffering the same fate as a company like Everpix. As I mentioned above, Notabli’s data-export feature is a godsend, and I really wish more companies would include this. Jackson explained why this feature was so a must-add for them:

It’s important. As parents, we didn’t want our kid-content held hostage by any service, so we made two things a priority while building Notabli:

Parents retain ownership of the content they post about their kids.

The moments you post are always available for download.

He points out that up until now, his company hasn’t done any advertising or PR, and that growth has been entirely organic. Up until this new v2, it has been more or less a public beta for them.

Everything we learned from our first version was used to refine Notabli 2 into an app that is better in almost every way, but maintains the level of simplicity and focus that we think makes Notabli great. In addition to this upcoming release, we also just launched email digests. These have really shown to work well for those friends and family that prefer email, over viewing Notabli moments on the web or in the iOS app.

Given Japan’s enthusiasm for photo apps, I closed by asking Jackson if they have any plans to introduce a localized version of Notabli for Japan. He replies:

We’re definitely exploring localizations and would love to have a Japanese version of Notabli. Any volunteers to help out? Seriously. Email me!

Any readers here who actually are friends with me on Facebook will probably say that I share lots of baby pictures on Facebook. I do share some every once in a while, but when I do, I’m very selective, and visibility is set to a custom group of friends. ↩
I’m happy to say I have all those captured. ↩

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Top 5: Great Mobile Apps For New Parents

Rick Martin 2013.10.01

Having entered the ranks of fatherhood just this year, I’ve found that I’ve been experimenting with a number of applications that can help with parenting in general, as well as recording the most memorable moments of my baby’s development. As someone who lives in Japan, I’ve found myself using a mix of apps from abroad as well as a few homegrown applications. I thought I’d give a quick rundown of some of the mobile apps that have served me well so far. For any new parents out there, I highly recommend them all. 1. Notabli ¶ This is perhaps by far my most enthusiastic recommendation. Notabli is a private social network for parents with kids, letting you upload photos, short videos, and even audio updates, which are visible only to the people you want to share with. For me, that means my wife, my parents, and some close friends. It also lets you mark media as a milestone (like first tooth, first steps, etc), also another indispensable feature. There are numerous applications that I considered for photo management, but the primary reason why I chose Notabli is that it allows for full-resolution storage of photos, with the option to export…

mobile-apps-for-new-parents-620x438 — Original photo via makelessnoise on Flickr

I thought I’d give a quick rundown of some of the mobile apps that have served me well so far. For any new parents out there, I highly recommend them all.

1. Notabli ¶

This is perhaps by far my most enthusiastic recommendation. Notabli is a private social network for parents with kids, letting you upload photos, short videos, and even audio updates, which are visible only to the people you want to share with. For me, that means my wife, my parents, and some close friends. It also lets you mark media as a milestone (like first tooth, first steps, etc), also another indispensable feature.

There are numerous applications that I considered for photo management, but the primary reason why I chose Notabli is that it allows for full-resolution storage of photos, with the option to export them all at any time. This data-liberation feature is the most important function, letting me periodically ensure that I have local copies of moments that I really can’t afford to lose.

This is currently available for free on the App Store, although it is a service that I would happily pay for. I really can’t emphasize enough how great this app is.

2. Road Movies ¶

Videos on the afore-mentioned Notabli are restricted to 30 seconds in length, which is perhaps my only complaint about the app. But that makes Honda’s Road Movies, which I reviewed back in August, is a wondeful complementary video app.

Road Movies lets you create 24-second composite clips (the perfect length for Notabli) by combining short 1-second, 2-second, or 3-second clips that you record during your day. For me, I typically take 3 seconds of video of my baby in various situations, and then when they are assembled in Road Movies and mixed with the license-free background music, the result is amazing.

Perhaps Honda, the app’s creator, meant for it to be used in your car while on the road, but it’s great for recording moments with family too. You can pick up this made-in-Japan app over on the App Store.

3. DayOne ¶

Taking a page from Gabe Weatherhead over at MacDrifter, who says he uses this journaling app to write letters to his daughter. I’ve begun doing the same, taking pictures and adding short notes now and then whenever I think of a message that my infant kid maybe can’t yet understand.

The app lets me write in Markdown, and syncing with Dropbox and/or iCloud assures me that my data is (relatively) safe.

It’s available for both iOS and Mac, for $4.99 and $9.99 respectively – although I have only bought the former, and that works for me just beautifully.

4. BabyCenter ¶

The folks over at BabyCenter have an assortment of great mobile apps, but the one that I’ve really found the most interesting is My Baby Today. After installing, you simply input your baby’s birthdate and it will then notify you with appropriate updates about your baby’s development.

The app has a photo album function, which I haven’t used at all. But the flow of information about caring for babies is incredibly useful for first-time parents, so I encourage you to check it out. It’s available for iOS and Android. (Thanks to D. for the recommendation!)

5. Baby Soothing Sounds ¶

You’ve all probably heard about people using white noise to sooth a crying baby. Well, this made-in-Japan app is a simple solution that gives you an assortment of white noise sounds whenever you need them. You can choose from things like hair dryer, TV static, running water, and even an unusual ramen slurping sound.

There are lots of apps like this on the market, but this one is free for iOS, and works really well. Try swaddling your baby and tucking your mobile into the folds of the blanket. It works like a charm for me, but it could be because my baby is so awesome. I’m sure your baby is cool too, but your mileage may vary.

Bonus: Nohana ¶

I’m appending this app here as a bonus, since it is not available to folks who live outside Japan. But for those of you who do live in Japan, Mixi’s Nohana app is a simply awesome. We’ve written extensively about this mobile photobook printing service as it has developed, but let me sum it up briefly:

You upload photos from your smartphone, and Nohana will send you a free photobook. That’s it. Well, there’s a minor 90 yen shipping charge (about $1), but that’s a miniscule price to pay for the book they send you. Their business model appears to be based on the hopes that you will order additional books that can be shipped to grandparents (a big demographic in Japan) for the additional cost of 500 yen (about $5).

Nohana is available for free for both iOS and Android. Seriously, if you’re a parent in Japan, this is a service you should be using.

If you have any suggested additions for this list, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments!

notabli

Saving the story of your kids: Notabli app launches version 2.0