By Bryan Person
Looking for an easy way to capture and chronicle moments in your children’s lives, even when, like me, you don’t have the discipline to either round up those stories regularly on a blog or jot down thoughts in a baby book?
Consider creating a parent-controlled Twitter feed for each of your kids, as I’ve done for Amani (2) and Viola (14). I keep my two feeds private and share updates only with a handful of close family members on Twitter, but the system plays right into my daily workflow (i.e., lots of time on Twitter).
I routinely tweet from my iPhone, using a nifty app called Tweetie that enables posting to multiple accounts. For my kids, I can publish, say, the latest addition to my two-year-old son’s growing vocabulary in one update, and then painlessly switch accounts and tweet a note on my newest daughter’s dance routine (I can hear her working on some new moves just outside my office door)
Export private tweets to Google Reader via FreeMyFeed
And imagining the day in 2011 when I’ll want to know exactly when Amani said the word “slippery” for the very first time (it was yesterday, for the record), I’m also also storing and archiving every tweet in Google Reader, which features powerful search functionality.
I needed a workaround when I first added the feeds, though, because Google Reader doesn’t read private RSS feeds directly. Enter FreeMyFeed, a free service that “free[s] your feed from authentication or invalid SSL certificates for use in the feed reader of your choice.”
I encourage you to copy the idea, and would love to hear from you if you do!
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I think this is a great idea Bryan. I have tweeted some of the things my kids have said, but your idea of the private feed and your process for integrating it with Google Reader sounds great. Thanks for sharing.
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I think this is a great idea Bryan. I have tweeted some of the things my kids have said, but your idea of the private feed and your process for integrating it with Google Reader sounds great. Thanks for sharing.
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Both of my kids have Twitter accounts, but they haven’t started tweeting yet. Stay tuned for two new Twitter rock stars to emerge soon.
http://www.twitter.com/samdelaney
http://www.twitter.com/elladelaney
🙂
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Both of my kids have Twitter accounts, but they haven’t started tweeting yet. Stay tuned for two new Twitter rock stars to emerge soon.
http://www.twitter.com/samdelaney
http://www.twitter.com/elladelaney
🙂
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I have set up an email account for my two year old and I sometimes send her emails, to be read when she’s older!
We also use http://www.wee-web.com to keep family and friends up to speed with what she’s up to including photos and video. It’s private to who you allow access.
Live the Twitter idea too. thanks
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I have set up an email account for my two year old and I sometimes send her emails, to be read when she’s older!
We also use http://www.wee-web.com to keep family and friends up to speed with what she’s up to including photos and video. It’s private to who you allow access.
Live the Twitter idea too. thanks
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Jo:
The e-mail account for your 2-year-old is a great idea! I remember Scott Monty writing he did the same for his kids. Another reminder that I need to go and do just that.
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Jo:
The e-mail account for your 2-year-old is a great idea! I remember Scott Monty writing he did the same for his kids. Another reminder that I need to go and do just that.
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I never thought of this before, but it sounds pretty clever to me. You can limit the access, but still maintain this timeline of milestones pretty easily. Instead of always saying, “We should really write this stuff down”, and never doing so, twitter can be used to create a record in a private manner. I’m definitely considering this. Thanks for this post.
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I never thought of this before, but it sounds pretty clever to me. You can limit the access, but still maintain this timeline of milestones pretty easily. Instead of always saying, “We should really write this stuff down”, and never doing so, twitter can be used to create a record in a private manner. I’m definitely considering this. Thanks for this post.