By Lora Shinn
With today’s advances in technology, waiting for birth announcements via snail mail seems so 1988. Now you can instantly share baby’s specs—name, height, weight—and maybe even photos, video, and sound in several geek-chic ways.
Blog it: Set up a pregnancy and baby blog and ask pals to add it to their RSS reader, so when you or your partner publish birth stats and pics, they’ll know right away. “It was great because we could get the word out quickly with multiple photos. Folks could leave a message for us and our new addition and it was totally green,” says Krista Pille of Cincinnati.
Twitter it: You’ll need your partner’s help with this one. Twitter.com allows a play-by-play, minute-by-minute text recap, uploaded by cell, laptop, or wireless device. Close friends can follow the “tweets” from contractions to first cries, receiving automatic updates by instant message, text, or your Twitter page.
YouTube it: “I shot images and video on a small digital camera, went home the afternoon of her birth, edited them and added music, uploaded the video to YouTube, then sent the link to all of our friends and family—all within 24 hours,” says dad Rick Julian of Atlanta. You can create high-tech videos with zero tech skills using One True Media or Animoto. Both let you integrate photos, video, music, and text.
Text it: Too tired to write a mass e-mail or mess around with baby pics? Spinvox converts your voice announcement to text and sends an email to friends and family.
Baby Birth Notifications will distribute a text message to 100 people with your short and sweet sentiment; similarly, phonevite can deliver a voice message to 25 recipients at once for free. Or record baby’s first cries and Snappy Baby forwards it to your predefined list by email and phone.