
HiMom (YC S12) Helps Your Parents Keep Up With Your Life - martin_tipgain
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/12/yc-backed-himom-helps-your-parents-keep-up-with-your-life-one-postcard-at-a-time-and-without-facebook/
======
Comrade
Interesting. Although, I don't like it for the same reason I don't like the
Pair app.

I think communication between loved ones should be more personal. I don't
think these types of relationships should be encouraged.

You should be calling your mother more. You should be taking the time out of
your day to send a personal email or letter if they aren't technically savvy.

I get it, it's easy. Few taps on your iPhone and a postcard is on the way to
your Mom.

I just think that life is too short to subject a relationship as important as
the one you have with your parents to a mobile app. Can you imagine:

"Hi Mom it's Kelsey, here's a picture of me and my new dog, Snookums!"

-This message delivered to you with no effort at all by HiMom, the mobile app for terrible sons/daughters

Just call your parents. They love you and miss you.

~~~
abbasmehdi
_I get it, it's easy. Few taps on your iPhone and a postcard is on the way to
your Mom._

Exactly why it's useful.

 _I just think that life is too short to subject a relationship as important
as the one you have with your parents to a mobile app._

Constant postcards will be welcome (at least by my parents), in addition to
the call. Especially useful if you have young kids growing up far from
grandparents.

~~~
mirsadm
I've been living overseas for over a year now. I video Skype with my parents
every week or two on Sundays. Otherwise my parents check out pictures that my
girlfriend puts on Facebook every now and then.

I have to admit I am struggling to see this app would work for me. Postcards
as emails aren't that useful (I may as well just send an email with a picture
attached). Otherwise physical postcards are only interesting if you buy them
from the place you are visiting.

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slap_shot
I think this could be huge. I just don't know if it will be in its current
fashion.

I just checked my email, and in the last 30 days I've sent my parents 11
emails that were just picture of attachments of things I was out and about
doing.

Sure, it doesn't have a cute post card design, but they get the pictures
delivered to the only medium I can efficiently get it to them (neither have
any social media accounts) and I can add a quick message.

So I don't immediately see a need for an app to do just that. But maybe some
people find emailing to be too much of a hassle.

However, I have to think of what this can become. I have a particularly close
relationship with my parents, and we talk everyday (actually, we call twice a
day...and I'm 25!). They usually know what I've done each and every day.

But a lot of my friends are equally as close with their parents, but
communicate a lot less. It could be scheduling conflicts because they live 3-4
hours away, or something other restriction on their time.

But maybe there are parents out there that would love a news feed of sorts in
their email about what their children or loved ones are doing.

It seems there would be an upper limit on its purpose as each generation
adopts technology more and more. But I think they are on to something. I dig
it!

~~~
markus_tipgain
Hey slap_shot, thanks for your comment.

You also can send an email with HiMom. Good thing is that we try to enrich the
email for your parents as much as possible. We are retrieving automatically
Wikipedia information of the place where the picture has been taken. Also we
are detecting the location of the picture and displaying that in the email.

HiMom is not focusing purely on postcards. Our main focus is to simplify the
communication with the tech-savvy generation. Postcard is one medium of it.
The current version is just the beginning..

Let me know if you want to be our beta tester to always test out the newest
features.

Cheers Markus

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pavel_lishin
Is anyone else reminded of Fisheye's explanation of the Mafia philosophy in
Snow Crash?

 _"It's just a thing with us. We like to go person-to-person, the old-
fashioned way. Like, on my momma's birthday, I don't pick up the phone and
dial 1-800-CALL-MOM. I go there in person and give her a kiss on the cheek,
okay?"_

~~~
Comrade
I bought Snow Crash because I heard so many good things about it. I really
need to get around to reading it.

------
kristenlee
Wow, this is really going to change the world. YC S12 is probably the best
class out of YC so far. A mobile app that allows me to send a postcard to my
mom...genius!!! A billion dollar company in the making.

~~~
dmix
Can't tell if sarcasm or not. HN has made me a cynical one.

~~~
jansen
It's sarcasm. Billion dollar company or not, doesn't matter to me and most
people out there. It's useful and something people will like. It's perfect for
me at least to make my Mum happy from time to time so you'll see me using
this!

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2arrs2ells
Hacker tested, Mom approved ("You're so sweet!").

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kirillzubovsky
The app looks really good and worked great for me. Whether or not I would send
a physical card to my mom, I don't know, but this is really nice to send
occasional photos to mom. I know she appreciates and this makes it quite
effortless on my part. Just as fast as email, but looks nicer.

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yukuan
I think this app is great! I've always been the kind who's terrible about
staying in touch, and it's so nice to have something that I can send out
quickly without spending much time, yet still looks nice when it gets there.

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prawn
Flip it around. Have parents choose things like "Thinking about you. What have
you been up to lately?" "Haven't seen the girls for a while - send me a
photo!"

Right now, my parents look at my Twitter feed and then text me comments.

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brycecolquitt
I wonder--does it become less special _because_ it's sent in a medium like
this? Nearly automating the process seems to take the thought out of it, and
it really is the thought that counts with your parents.

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slykat
Besides the postcard format, how is this different from PicPlum (YC S11)?

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rane
For a moment I thought Hipster [1] had changed its name.

[1] <http://www.hipster.com>

