High-quality parenting information highlighted in new ParentPower application

April 29th, 2008 Hackmer Posted in Overview |

Today we at ActiveAccess launched the Beta version of the ParentPower Index application. ActiveAcess develops custom-branded applications for media companies, corporations, colleges and universities, non-profits and government agencies, but this is the first time we have developed one of our own for an existing community.

We have been working on ParentPower for several months and we have talked to many bloggers in the community for their input. We want to especially thank the focus group participants for their great suggestions for improvement.

We have added over 200 bloggers into the index already and hope that the community will add many more fantastic parent bloggers over the next few weeks.

We hope that during our Beta phase you will continue to help us make a number of tweaks to our offering. Be sure to give us your feedback. We have set up a survey at PollDaddy, and you can access us directly at myvoice [at] parentpowerindex dot com, or on Twitter at Twitter.com/ParentPower.

ParentPower is broken down into two parts, the Desktop Application and the Index and Headlines. Here is some information about each of them.

The Desktop Application and Reader

The ParentPower Desktop Application is designed to make your life easier and to help you find great content fast. In the ParentPower button you can find the index, blogger headlines, BlogHer Mommy and Family, Sk*rt Family and Parenting, and CNN Health/Parenting.

In the menu there are quick links to Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Sk*rt. And we have put together a list of links that you might find useful such as movies, traffic, shopping and more.

On the left sidebar, the application includes games, parenting videos and podcasts - which you can find in the media feeds on the Menu. Plus, we are known for delivering the weather.

We have also included an RSS reader that you can customize. If you aren’t using an RSS reader, it is a powerful and simple tool. If you do have an RSS reader, you can use this one for specialized tasks and to cut down on clutter in your main reader.

The Index and Headlines

Rankings. Some people like them and some people don’t, but we have seen first-hand how they have enabled other communities to easily discover and enjoy bloggers. In fact, we have taken this a step further and put together a Headlines page, so that you can quickly get a snapshot of what is happening in the Parenting Blogosphere. We hope this brings great visibility for the bloggers in the index and for parents looking for parenting tips and other information. Plus, it means you don’t have to be a top-ranked blogger to get noticed. We have put together a primer on using ParentPower to promote your blog.

Index Methodology

The Index uses a percentile ranking system that uses Technorati inbound links and rank, Bloglines subscriptions, Alexa rank, Google PageRank, and Yahoo inbound links. All of these are averaged and each blog is given a percentile score. We adjusted the formula so that the blog defaults to its highest possible rank. As you will see, many blogs have identical positioning on the index. You can read more about the ParentPower methodology on the page we put together for that purpose.