The need for information and craving for companionship from mums online is what Mothercare-backed social network Gurgle built its whole model on. Launched in October 2007, it already claims to have 250,000 unique users a month and more than 60,000 registered members, spending an average of seven minutes a session on the site. It offers mums a mixture of information and advice from an in-house editorial team and panel of experts, in a social network setting, allowing them to chat, message and create personal profiles and groups.

"Mums really wanted this kind of site," says Gurgle editor Nifa McLaughlin. "In the past they might have had an aunt or gran who lived nearby they could ask for advice but now everyone lives so far away that the internet is great for connecting and getting information."

The site says it's primarily aimed at younger women, giving them a way to connect. "These women, who have had great careers and are used to being surrounded by people, suddenly find themselves quite alone when they become mums, so to be able to go online and connect can help them feel less lonely," says McLaughlin.

While the backing of Mothercare can be credited for driving the strong user numbers, Gurgle quickly cemented its position as a major player through a deal in May with HarperCollins, which will see it release a spin-off series of books (nma.co.uk 1 May). After the announcement came a content partnership with MSN to provide original content and tutorial videos for the portal, quickly followed by international expansion with local sites for the US and India.

Confident heritage

However, the main players maintain they're not rattled by the arrival of this purpose-built community and information site, despite its fast growth. Andrew Thomas, ebusiness director at Bounty, is confident in his site's continued relevance to mothers. "We've been doing this a long time. As a parenting club Bounty is almost 50 years old and it's this offline channel support that keeps the site known and trusted among mums," he says.

With a claimed 400,000 unique users a month, Bounty is one of the sector's biggest players. The original offline club started in 1959 and now provides more than 60m samples to new parents each year. Last month it added to its portfolio with a site for dads (nma 25 September).

US online media company Kaboose bought the company in November last year in a deal worth £70m. Kaboose operates several parenting and children's sites across the UK, US and Canada, including Babyzone, ParentZone and Zeeks. While Thomas remains confident of Bounty's heritage, the site has made significant investment in content to guarantee its continued relevance. In May it outlined plans to spend £300,000 on content (nma.co.uk 16 May) and has since launched podcasts, an interactive series, unlimited storage photo services and Bounty TV. "Online networking is a normal way of communicating for younger mums," says Thomas. "These aren't women coming online for the first time, they use it all the time. This also means their expectations are higher — they expect to see multimedia and easier ways to connect with each other. So that's why we're investing in this side of the site."

Justine Roberts, co-founder and MD of Mumsnet, agrees that women want more than just brochures online, with community being the main draw. "The chat over the garden fence and coffee mornings are no longer a reality. That physical community has gone," she says. "But women still want to interact with each other."

Mumsnet, which calls itself a 'meeting point for parents', has seen its community swell over the past 12 months from 320,000 to 530,000 unique users, it claims. Roberts is proud of the site's reputation for giving mums a place to be outspoken and honest about motherhood, which has also led it to become a lobbying ground for parents. Last year Mumsnet successfully pushed the Advertising Standards Authority to pull a cinema ad for missing Madeleine McCann that was running prior to family films. It also lobbied for a change in the internet libel law after its run-in with childcare guru Gina Ford.

"When we started we wanted to do something different from the magazines that were out there, which just focused on babies and being a mum," says Roberts. "These are women who also happen to be mums, so we don't want to restrict what they can talk about online."

Online communities such as Mumsnet give mothers space to be anonymous and discuss issues they might not be comfortable with face to face, such as depression, feeling isolated, or having children from different fathers. A more conservative place for them online is BabyCentre. Claiming to be the number one site for parents, the polished site was set up in 1999 by healthcare and pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson. It now has an active community of more than 500,000 registered users and features content from a team of experts and a medical advisory board.

Family brands

While the main players don't seem threatened by Gurgle's fast growth, there are larger brands edging into the space, the most notable being Disney. Last year Disney Interactive Media Group brought in the former publisher of Emap's Mother & Baby, Dani Zur, to take charge of its parenting portal and look to replicate the success it was enjoying with Family.com in the US.

In July it launched UKFamily, billed as a place for information, advice and social networking. Three weeks later Disney acquired RaisingKids.co.uk, a site founded in 2001 by child psychologist Dr Pat Spungin (nma.co.uk 5 August). A ready-made audience of more than 142,000 monthly unique users and 100,000 registered users were added to Disney's parenting portfolio.

Now general manager of UKFamily, Zur outlines what Disney can offer mums online that's not already available. "There are lots of sites with information and lots for community, but not many have worked out how to successfully combine the two," he says. "UKFamily is a site that does all this in a web-friendly way and gives mothers a way to connect, contribute knowledge and share their parenting experiences."

While the moves clearly show Disney to be pushing on the idea of community to further its parenting offering, Zur admits she's exercising caution over how to use it. "Lots of sites have forums but it's usually a small portion of their users actually contributing to them," she says. "Other parents can often feel intimidated to join in, so forums don't often work for every site. There are also cultural differences between what has worked for the US sites and what will work here."

UKFamily and Raisingkids, which are subtly integrated, have a combined audience of 200,000 unique users.

According to research by Bounty, mums spend £2bn on baby consumables a year, so it's no surprise brands are prepared to invest in communities to engage them. Boots, Cow & Gate and Huggies have managed to carve out successful online information hubs independent of the dominant sites. Huggies and Cow & Gate's sites are driven via on-pack promotion and word of mouth, while Boots uses in-store activity and its Advantage Card.

Food brands are also using online to give mums messages and product information, especially as concerns about childhood obesity grow. McCain, Cheesestrings, Kinder, Bel UK and Plum Baby have all made online investments over the past 12 months targeting mothers. These information-rich sites contain a mix of nutritional information, blogs, games and videos.

But with so many new sites, is the market in danger of being saturated, or is the appetite of digital mums outgrowing the small pool of sites available? "There's room for all these sites," says Bounty's Thomas. "It's a big market, but it's not easy. Sites can't just expect to launch and be successful, they need to build up trust with mums and give them value. This takes time."

Statistics seem to back up the point. The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) study found mums to be ramping up their online time, spending 10.7 hours online each week, up 46% on 2004 figures. The study conducted more than 7,000 interviews across ten countries, including a panel of 990 in the UK. It also tracked a 29% year-on-year growth rate for mothers accessing price-comparison sites, and a 25% increase in their use of family and games sites.

Alison Fennah, executive director of the EIAA, says, "Digital mums are a very dynamic segment. These findings show just how quickly it's growing and how much more mums want from online."

While magazines, books and parenting gurus have long existed, online gives mums more. They can get the kind of information they want, when they want it, and they no longer have to wait for a mother-and-baby group or GP appointment to ask what's normal.

The boom in digital mums seems to be a reflection of society. As the extended family continues to separate and more mums go back to work, women are increasingly looking for ways to connect with each other and share.  

Family values

To build a clear picture of today's digital mum, Discovery Research conducted qualitative research with the online members of Bounty. The survey found them to be in a battle between acting on trends and maintaining traditional family values.

The report dispelled the myth that once women become mums they no longer go online, pointing to laptops and the skill to multi-task as pushing up mums' internet consumption.

The research describes mums as 'information-hungry', keen to pull in advice from as many different sources as they can, from professionals and experts to others with shared experiences.

It also gave weight to the idea that mums crave online contact with a community, with new mums reporting feelings of isolation and a lack of support. Such feelings were the cause of mothers turning to technology and gadgets for comfort and also distraction.

The report looked at how mums interact with brands, finding them to be promiscuous and reliant on word of mouth. Bounty found that for brands to succeed with the group they had to talk directly to mums.

The research found magazines were one of the first casualties of motherhood, with a lack of time and money blamed on mums no longer buying their glossies.

Bounty's findings were based on extended home interviews in June 2008 that took place over a seven- to ten-day period. A panel also took part in video diaries.

Top five UK parenting sites

1 BabyCentre, owned by Johnson & Johnson, recorded 371,000 unique users in July 2007, rising to 485,000 in July this year.

2 Netmums.com, an independent site with financial backing from BT, ELC and Nick Jr, saw unique users rise from 134,000 in July 2007 to 363,000 this year.

3 Bounty, owned by Kaboose, reported unique users of 170,000 in July last year, up to 245,000 in July 2008.

4 Mumsnet, which is an independent site, saw user numbers rise from 93,000 to 160,000 between July 2007 and July 2008.

5 Raisingkids.co.uk, owned by Disney, has seen growth in users from 106,000 in July 2007 to 136,000 in July 2008.

Source: Nielsen Online