Born to Blog? Meet SocialNetworking for Babies: TotSpot, Kidmondo, Lil’Grams and Odadeo.

Social networks have a whole new target audience: babies. Despite the fact that studies show record global growth for current world leader Facebook (153%) and spurts for Hi5 and even Friendster, that growth is bound to slow as grown-ups run out of fellow grown-ups to friend request. The solution? The diaper set.

Today, the modern equivalents of the now-dinosaur ‘Sears Photo Studio baby brag book’ are bubbling up everywhere. Social networks start while the babe is still a bump with blossoming sites like TheCradle.com, a hot new lifestyle destination for new pregnancy and new parenthood. The site, currently in beta, has easy-to-use social networking features for Moms to be, with personalizable web page templates, thriving message boards and a wealth of practical information. Moms can connect with other Moms who are in the same stage of pregnancy to share and support each other.

By the baby is born, he or she is already Google-able and ready to toddle (or twitter) over to the next step: their very own social network.

While bebe is napping (or busy studying Mandarin with his nanny), Mom and Dad can check out these growing choices:

Totspot: The brainchild of a bunch of family-oriented Harvard grads, TotSpot is a place to create a private page about your kids and share it with friends and family. It’s an online scrapbook and community for babies, kids, and their parents.

Kidmondo: Kidmondo was founded by a couple in New York City, who - after the birth of their second child - couldn’t find an compelling way to chronicle and share news about their kids with family and friends around the world. The mission: Kidmondo is a comprehensive online baby journal and organizer that allows parents and caregivers to chronicle their child’s life and share it with friends and family in a safe environment.

Guru’s Note: Kidmondo’s founders very smartly included ‘caregivers’ in their mission statement. This is a fact of today’s life — the caregiver may very likely be the one to witness the first step or horrors! rub whiskey on the gums of that teething babe. Takeaway: Hire a nanny whose skills extend from web 2.0 to wee-wee.

Lil’Grams: This microblogging site — dubbed twittering for toddlers — comes from new father and entrepreneur Greg Narain of Blue Whale Labs. The mission: Lil’Grams is a real-time baby book designed to make it absolutely simple for parents to capture the precious moments of their baby’s life and share it with their family and friends instantly. The most precious moments of your baby’s life are countless - but they only come once. With LittleGrams, you can keep, track, and share anything about your baby.

Odadeo: Created by Stef Lewandowski, the site was soft launched on Father’s Day of last year but appears to still be in beta. The mission: Odadeo is the site that aims to answer the question “how am I going to be a better dad?” Whether you’re veteran of fatherhood or an outright newbie, Odadeo looks built to to help you make your father-son and father-daughter connections that much more Web 2.0-compliant.

Guru’s Note: There are some 85 million Moms in the U.S. and most of them seem to be on the Internet busily blogging (I’m one of them). So it’s about time the Dads start turning up in droves. One of the most frequently asked questions at events where Kat Gordon of Mom-marketing company, Maternal Instinct, and I team up to speak is: What about the Dads?

The Death of Email. RIP Email.

Email has been ailing for quite some time. I knew it was on its last legs and even with a fresh infusion of retro Rocketmail from Yahoo, things have not been looking good. Then last night on ABC Family’s new “The Secret Lives of Teenagers” the official death rattle sounded. One of the show’s main characters, clearly the series’ resident good girl, stared directly into the camera, opened her perfectly-puffed lips and delivered the final blow: “Email? No one emails anymore.”

Today, mere hours after this chilling proclamation, Facebook launched its new interface, upping its privacy standards and increasing its focus on improved user experience. MySpace has cleaned up its interface as well and has more upgrades in the works. Uber-user-friendly and growing phenom etsy.com, funded in January to the tune of $27 million from Accel Partners and others, is also growing its social networking features.

And just days ago, Hitwise recently reported that traffic to Twitter increased 500 percent for the week ending July 5, 2008, compared with the same period last year. That’s a killer jump for a service that’s plagued with technical glitches and perpetually flashes its famous Fail Whale.

A study by the Pew Research Center waay back in 2005 revealed that even then, almost half of online teenagers preferred to chat with friends via IM rather than e-mail. And that was before Apple’s iPhone.

Can email be saved? Should email be saved? Stay tuned.