Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

I’d like to announce the beta launch of a brand new site today - Savvy Auntie!

This community is the baby of Melanie Notkin, someone who has become a great mentor and dare I say……..friend, during our recent months of online interaction. I’ve followed her business process and auntrepreneur (no, that’s NOT mispelled!) musings on her blog and twitter and am so proud to be a part of her wonderful community for aunts. I’m so exciting to be writing education articles for the Savvy Aunties on the site - tips and tricks for helping nieces and nephews on their journey through learning. My first piece is actually up on the site already - An Auntie’s Guide to School Involvement.

If you’re not convinced that this will be a resounding success, I’d say that the fact that Tech Crunch wrote (edited to add: or didn’t write, see below) about this today - “Savvy Auntie: P.A.N.K is the New Pink” - is indicator enough. (edited to add: TC piece pulled, but reprinted at The Washington Post.)

Here’s what TC had to say:

SavvyAuntie is comprised of a social network, and resources like user blogs, expert blogs, activity guides and gift suggestions. Users register and fill in information about their nieces and nephews to get customized gift and activity suggestions, and information about themselves so that they can meet other aunts (and uncles).

Oh wait, Mashable (that’s right - MASHABLE) wrote this up today too!

Kristen Nicole of Mashable says:

And in terms of resources, SavvyAuntie is far more than what you’d expect. There’s not just gift and activity ideas, but articles on gaining children’s trust and saving for college. It’s practically a parenting site, with the aunt in mind. And searching through all the resourceful content SavvyAuntie has to offer, the filters are quite useful as well.

Head on over - all aunties welcome!

Updates:

Just in! 7/10/08

Check out the Huffington Post interview with Melanie - her first since the launch of the site!

Edited to include:

The TechCrunch piece was mysteriously pulled and this TMG post got linked to in a second Huffington Post article about the SavvyAuntie/TechCrunch “mystery” - how bout that? You can read the full version of the pulled TC piece at the Washington Post - strange things happening online these days, I tell ya.

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