Many of our users have asked about who exactly is behind YBM. Most just express a passing curiosity. Others wonder (sometimes out loud) if this is all an elaborate plan to capture their pet peeves, lunch choices, hollywood crushes, and American Idol picks for use against them in some sort of nefarious blackmailing scheme.
First off, we hope you realize by now that we’re 100% dedicated to protecting your privacy and anonymity; to do otherwise would be nothing but self-destructive. Secondly, we hope you will respect our privacy as much as we respect yours, as there are some things we just won’t answer in the interest of protecting our families and keeping our personal lives separate.
So that being said, while there won’t be any names, addresses or phone numbers listed here, we will try to clarify some of the confusion. And boy is there a lot of confusion. Without any real information to go on, people have speculated left and right about who we might be:
Are you an ex-CNET employee? Are you LASM mom? Borg Mom? Dooce? Do you post in purple because you’re a lesbian? Are you guys Canadian? I heard you’re a hermaphrodite! You must be a dude, a woman could never program a site like this. It’s got to be a woman, a man could never be this responsive.
Its probably time to put some of these rumors to rest so, first who we aren’t. We do not have any relationship, present or past, with CBS, CNET, or Urbanbaby. We are neither located in Canada nor Nova Scotia. We are not any of the following: LASM Mom, Borg Mom, Dooce, Scrappin’ Jackie or Oprah Winfrey. We are not homosexuals (not that there’s anything wrong with that). And we most definitely are not a sinister fly-by-night organization looking to capture everyone’s personal information for use in some twisted extortion scam.
So who exactly are you?
Well, unfortunately the answer is going to be really disappointing and anti-climactic. I wish I could tell you “YBM is Tina Fey!” or something more exciting, but the reality is, we’re just a couple of friends, one WAHM, one WAHD, former coworkers, and ex-New Yorkers. Yes we’re married, but no, not to each other. We’re both parents of toddlers, hoping to build something informative and fun for other parents like us. We both have full-time jobs as do our spouses, and we work on this in our spare time. We do pay for everything out of our own pockets, but expenses have been manageable. We are frequently on, sometimes in purple, sometimes not, making sure things are running smoothly. And yes, you probably have flamed us at one point or another 
.
So there you have it. The mysterious person(s) in purple.
Now about that name…
We’re obviously neither gods nor goddesses. We’re just parents like you, and happy to be building a site that everyone enjoys using. So for the record, while we appreciate the sentiment and fantastic support from everyone, a less airy title would probably be more appropriate and calling us “YBM” would be just fine!
Thanks for coming out of the closet, I am sure you both feel much better now. Thanks for making this site and I know people will support it if you ever needed $$ to keep it going.
Are you planning on introducing some form of advertising? I fully support you in this. I think even small text google ads could generate revenue. If you were UB regulars, you know what UBers hate about advertising, but it’s easy enough to avoid that.
So happy to finally have this info! Just wanted to say how cool it was of you to include a link to my blog - so thank you! You’ve been on my blogroll for a while now since I think the site is fantastic. Keep up the good work…
Best,
LASM
I fully support advertising too. I am assuming there is some kind of legal/not wanting CNET to come after you reason for not doing so yet. I would even be fine with a Paypal button. Because while the costs may be manageable, I am immensely grateful to you for rescuing our community (especially the SN board, which is a lifeline to so many and which the UB redesign killed) and want to show my appreciation!
@LASM, yw and glad to have you on ybm! Thanks everyone for the comments. We're not planning to put any advertising on just yet. There's something nice about having a small corner of the internet that's not plastered with advertising, even if it's just little google text ads...
YBM
Well, that’s cool. And thanks much for the site. FWIW, next time you see me about to flame you while you’re on the down low, just wink and I’ll back off!
I always thought the “purple goddess” nickname was a little much too! And, um, sorry if I ever flamed you…
So honest question for you - do you feel guilty about basically stealing someone else’s idea, brand, format, audience? I like your site but I wouldn’t have done what you did - it’s not morally right, and probably illegal on some levels. You didn’t come up with an original idea, all you did was take someone else’s and clean it up, take the audience, etc.
Just think about it, I’m right
Nuff said.
A message board is a message board. You can’t patent or copyright. People voted with their feet on UB’s redesign. Not YBM’s problem. Have to wonder if YOU work for CNET…
Please, UB has a brand and audience - and they have message boards that act and look like this one. If this site just sprung up on the web, none of us would know about it or care. Instead, they took the look, feel and audience from UB. That’s not morally right
I don’t work for CNET, just a woman who works in brand marketing and knows a thing or two. You calling me a fuckwit when I state a fact - you clearly are not capable of grasping all this.
Betty,
They trademarked the brand and unfortunately did not continue to deliver on the brand promise, which in turn opened up an opportunity for a competitor to come in and do it better.
I can’t think of a thing that YBM did that was illegal. There was no copyright or trademark infringement. They simply discovered similar software and gave their audience features they wanted (autosticky and the like). Unless they ripped off UrbanBaby’s code, they did nothing wrong and so many things right.
Now, I don’t think we should go around denigrating Betty. She’s entitled to her opinion even if most of us don’t agree with it.
My point is, whether they were delivering on brand promise of underdelivering, UrbanBaby created a brand, community, boards, etc. and the women behind this site took the entire concept, cleaned it up, and created a site that even in name is stolen from UrbanBaby.
It goes against my sense of morals. And I’m sure you wouldn’t let your child do it in school, steal some other kids work and replicate it.
Betty,
In a free market economy like ours, your argument doesn’t hold water. It would be one thing if YB physically stole the UrbanBaby code and claimed it as their own. But YB simply built a better mouse trap. You can’t deny that, or else no one would be using it.
Think Yahoo vs Google or IE vs Firefox. Are Google and Firefox guilty of stealing a concept and just “cleaning it up” too? Without competition, there is no innovation and that’s exactly what is happening here. YB took an idea and made it better.
Sorry Betty-
I’m not buying it. They didn’t steal code…they found software that is very similar so if you have a beef with that take it up with UB’s original software vendor. They did not steal the audience, they simply announced that they existed and people came to see what it was all about and like it so they stayed.
The name is the one area where you might have a point but since urbanbaby never trademarked “UB”, I’m not sure you have a case.
There are examples too numerous to name of businesses that have taken a good concept that was poorly executed or poorly maintained, improved upon it and gained significant market share. All legitimate and this is nothing new.
You sound a bit too much like a cnet wonk for me to take you seriously.
Betty downer said, “It goes against my sense of morals. And I’m sure you wouldn’t let your child do it in school, steal some other kids work and replicate it.”
Actually, Betty, your kids will in all liklihood take work created by someone else and make it their own in school. This site looks like an old, and yes, discarded, board, and it serves the same type of people, but it has been given an identity of it’s own by the administrators’ decisions, their alterations to the settings, and the allowable content, etc.
Frankly, if YBM is so abhorent to your values, don’t post.
Thanks for lifting up the veil behind the great and powerful Oz a bit, and especially thanks for taking the initiative to “correct” the “community void” after the UB debacle (poor, poor Cnet.) And I do appreciate the “ad-free corner” of the internet very much. At a large community blog where I often go, Metafilter, (it’s far more civilized than here) the admin, who is something of a rock star, charges $5/account sign in in order to cover costs - worked very well. (He has since started small google ads - liveable but not as nice.)
But I hate mystery! Are you Silicon Alley refugees? Because I may have worked with at least one of you - the writing style (which is always spot-on) seems so familiar!
Fwiw, just saying you’re two parents doens’t actually say who you are. Say your actual names and perhaps I’d be impressed. All that said, these message boards tend to be a huge waste of time for most involved. Thank goodness UB changed and I’m not joining here. Good luck all.
nn, “Perhaps you’d be impressed”? I don’t think anyone needs to or wants to impress you. It is people like you I really dont get. You say its a huge waste of time yet come here to post your idiotic comment. If you arent interested, then dont bother coming. Loser.
huh!..huh?
A couple posts here and there are a far cry from spending hours on the site.
I don’t logon to the site itself bc i don’t have a login.
It is, however, odd to me that you feel the need to protect a message board and the people who run it by calling me (someone yo don’t know) a loser.
IME, people tend to call you what they are. Perhaps look into that.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend. I hope you make it out of the house and beyond the computer.
NN, you don’t feel the need to logon but you do feel the need to post to the board, not once but twice???
What’s wrong? cnet job not keeping you busy enough?
I think there’s a way to accept donations through amazon.com. That might be a good way to get some $$ before resorting to ads.
Well, like I said, everything seems to stir up debate on YBM doesn't it?
@Betty, I'm sorry you feel the way that you do. Our intent was simply to provide a service that hundreds of people were demanding, but no one was providing. That being said, we don't view the circumstances in the same light as you do, and I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.
@nn, the purpose of this post was to answer some specific questions many of our users had about the creators of YBM. It was not written to impress anyone, so in that respect, I guess we succeeded. While YBM may be a waste of time for you, it is indeed a support network for many parents, and to make a blanket generalization like yours is pretty unfair.
@frankley mr. shankley, thanks for the tip on MetaFilter. Hadn't used it before and it's interesting to compare how it has evolved and found a way to sustain itself.
@xyz, you are correct, in fact MetaFilter was using an amazon.com donation link to keep their site funded as well. We're continuing to explore ideas, hopefully we can come up with something that is mutually beneficial to everyone.
@everyone else, thanks to all of you for your comments and support. As always, it is deeply appreciated.
- YBM
so cool of you to pick up the glove! love YBM (as I loved the old UB). It represent a real need, and you were there to address it.
If you will even profit from it eventually, then you rightfully earned it.
Thanks!
please help me figure out why i can’t ybm on my laptop. i get a /p and blank screen
@Angela, Will you go to your youbemom settings, and make sure "dim read posts" is checked? - YBM
One of the lawyers in this firm loves youbemom and has suggested creating an internal message board - not about toddlers, but about boring law firm management topics.
The functionality and design of ybm are elegant — obviously conducive to conversation, unlike many other message board systems.
Is the software behind ybm commercially available, either for installation on our own computers or via a hosting service?