Show HN: Babydook – a digital journal to document your baby's first years | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Babydook – a digital journal to document your baby's first years

babydook.com

4 pointsahmedomer6 comments

I like the idea of 'a digital journal to document your baby's first years', but your website isn't telling me much more. It looks like a can create stories, add photos and post the stories on FB if I had an iPhone and a FB account (I have neither).

A couple of questions that might help you improve your landing page:

- Where does the data get stored? Does it stay on my device? Can I get it off the device somehow?

- Can I share without FB?

- Have you got some screenshots or a demo of how the stories are presented?

Hi!

I'm in the process of updating the landing page with more information on the way. Facebook is not mandatory for using the application - you can also signup using an email address. At the moment, this app is only for iOS.

To answer your questions:

* All data is stored in the cloud - i'm using Parse. Images are cached on the device once they are downloaded but data is always fetched from the cloud. This also means that you can get all your data if you delete the app and install it, or even if you switch to another iOS device. The UI provides an option to delete stories from cloud and you're in full control of your data.

* Right now, users can only share on Facebook. An update scheduled for this build will cover other platforms using Apple's Activity sheet.

* The screenshots on the iTunes store cover the steps that a user goes through to publish a story. With the next scheduled release, i'm also going to add a small video preview.

Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate the questions. :)

Nice concept, and best of luck developing it. I would second junto's comments on additional information, in particular sharing options.

This could be a perfect platform, for example, for my beautiful wife and I to share our (as yet, imaginary) baby pictures with close family who also have the App. My mother could then, in theory, open the App and have an album for each of her grandchildren instead of them being all spread out over Facebook and Instagram. I would value such as closed network more than the ability for me (or others) to share onto wider social networks.

Friends of ours have a 'Family Photos' dropbox folder with these sort of categories, by way of understanding the alternatives to your product. Clearly the additional story-telling and caption features in Babydook would give you the upper hand.

At this point, the application is an MVP which allows posting stories with optional tags and organising them under Albums. These stories can be shared on Facebook, but in upcoming releases, you can expect:

* More sharing options other than Facebook

* Find Facebook / Contact friends inside the app and share your albums with them (Closed network)

* I started this concept for a baby's journal, but I guess this could easily be expanded for family photos like you've mentioned.

Thanks for the feedback - sincerely appreciated! :)

Such a cool app - a really nice idea with excellent UI

the name sounds a lot like Babadook, a horror film, which ironically show cases a very very difficult child.

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