BabyUniverse relaunches ePregnancy.com with Web 2.0

BabyUniverse Inc. is relaunching ePregnancy.com this week with Web 2.0 features that let visitors interact with live events and advertisements, watch streaming video, communicate with friends in personal blogs, and buy online from BabyUniverse and other retailers.

BabyUniverse acquired ePregnancy.com in June 2006 along with assets of the since-disbanded ePregnancy print magazine, and ever since then has built on the site’s early offerings in content and social networking, says Andrea Edmunds, president of content and social networking for BabyUniverse. Many of the members of the ePregnancy’s original online message board, which predates the acquisition, are still active and participating in the site’s additional social networking features, she adds.

The latest version of ePregnancy.com, with additional social networking features built on the Community Server platform from Telligent Systems, are designed to both provide more information sharing about maternity topics and make it easier for visitors buy online products featured in content, Edmunds says. “There are a lot of community web sites, but we haven’t seen much combination of social networking and e-commerce,” she says.

The new ePregnancy.com will offer multiple ways for visitors to view information and link to buy pages. Content produced by ePregnancy’s own editors about car seats, for example, will let readers click “car seats” to link to a buy page on an e-commerce site operated by BabyUniverse or another participating retailer, and online videos on the same topic will also appear near links to make online purchases.

"We`re excited to unveil the latest version of ePregnancy.com and are confident that the expanded features will lead to increased traffic and brand loyalty", says John Textor, chairman and CEO of BabyUniverse, No. 207 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. The new site has increased advertising inventory from advertisers including Evenflo, Disney and Pampers, he adds.

BabyUniverse claims a total of more than 1.9 million unique monthly visitors at its portfolio of sites, which include e-commerce sites BabyUniverse.com, PoshTots.com and DreamTimeBaby.com, content site PoshCravings.com and streaming video sites BabyTV.com. The new interactive and e-commerce features on ePregnancy were partly designed to better engage the total monthly audience of 1.9 million, Edmunds says.

Content includes product reviews and recall information, week-by-week pregnancy calendars, expert articles and blogs and original video programming on a variety of topics related to pregnancy and parenthood. The site also offers a set of social networking tools that allow users to create and share their own blogs, picture galleries, and chat dialogues with other ePregnancy members.