We’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of City Mommy, a local forum-based community site that operates in dozens of U.S. cities. The acquisition gives Red Tricycle a significant user boost in existing markets (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego) as well as lays the groundwork for future Red Tricycle nationwide expansion.
“CityMommy has been a long-time ally and friend to Red Tricycle, so we’re thrilled to welcome CityMommy enthusiasts into the Red Tricycle family,” said Red Tricycle CEO Jacq Boland. “Red Tricycle’s strong editorial voice, original content and loyal readership, coupled with CityMommy’s loyal, engaged and vocal forum users, will deliver a powerful, practical, and truly unique local online parenting experience.”
Users will be able to find local parenting topics on the Red Tricycle site from cooking to camping to concerts, and hear not only editor’s recommendations, but also valuable local mom tips and opinions.
In order to bring you the best and most robust offering of upgraded CityMommy features, we have temporarily suspended service on the current CityMommy site while we rebuild and expand capabilities.
Thank you so much for your continued support. It is our goal not only to build the most valuable parenting resource on the Internet, but to also make your personal experience better by providing the kind of trusted community forum that you all have grown to rely on.
In the meantime, stop in and take a look around. We think you’ll like what you see! Also, be sure to sign up for your free local Red Tricycle edition and stay tuned as we bring you the most awesome local parenting resource on the internet!
*August 15, 2011 Update
We acquired CityMommy in late July with the intention of merging their community boards with our parenting news. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until after the acquisition that we found out the software that CityMommy was built on was very old and had major security leaks that could compromise our entire site. We simply couldn’t repair and utilize existing forums – a huge disappointment to us – so we are rebuilding the new forums, very similar to the old CityMommy forums. We plan on rolling out the forums in Los Angeles first for beta testing and then the remaining markets in October/November. Thanks for your patience and feel free to share this info with other moms.
*September 10, 2011 Update
City forums are currently under construction and we still anticipate a Los Angeles beta rollout in the next few weeks. We are planning on holding a virtual focus group next week for former CityMommy users to discuss design and features of the new Red Tricycle City Forums. If you are interested in participating please email us to join in!
*October 2, 2011 Update
We are in the final stages of the forum build. Thank you for all who participated in the focus group last week. Here are some Q&A highlights from our call.
Q. So, the old boards are gone forever?
A. Yes, the CityMommy site was built on a very old and outdated platform with many security holes, which we were unable to repair and salvage. We mined the data from the old boards and plan to import and archive old forum posts.
Q. No accessing them at all moving forward?
A. The plan is to import the data into the new server and also archive it on our site so you should be able to access it once you are logged into our forums.
Q. Will people be able to go back and remove old information if they don’t want it there?
A. Yes. Our developer has also offered to delete any full user profiles who wishes to be removed.
Q. Will former members be able to modify their user profiles?
A. The profiles will overall contain much less information than the original CityMommy profiles did. There will be no import of demographic data on children, etc. Members will need to go fill out any other additional profile information they choose to share.
Q. When will the forums be up and running?
A. We expect LA to be ready for the first round of public testing in the next couple of weeks. The remaining city forums should be functional by the end of the year. Each city will have it’s own forum and in our multi- cities (NY Tri-State) each area will have it’s own forum.
Q. Will the CityMommy archives still be part of the new site, or are those gone now?
A. Yes, the archived posts and topic threads will be part of the new site.
Q. How are people going to find out when the new board becomes available?
A. All member data will be imported and usernames and passwords will be intact. We will be sending out a dedicated email announcing the forums to everyone that has a member profile.
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