Baby vs Baby! Let the Photobattle Commence

I have to admit when I first browsed the website Baby vs Baby my jaw dropped. They take the phrase “my baby’s cuter than your baby” and turn it into a Web 2.0 style popularity contest. We all think our kids are the cutest. Don’t we? And as a gag, I would be happy to wear the t-shirt pictured above any day, but I don’t think we should objectify our kids. This online game does just that and keeps score to boot. The authors of Baby vs Baby were inspired by Kittenwar and you will notice a lot of similarities between the two.

The premise behind the site is for visitors to vote which of two baby photos is cuter. In my opinion, the real challenge is for the moderators who have to pick photo submissions that are age and gender specific for comparison. Also, they say in their FAQ that they don’t have records as to why some photos are rejected. Can you imagine all those upset parents out there? If you follow their guidelines though, there is a very good chance your photo will be approved.

In each “round”, two photos are presented side-by-side and you just pick the one you like better. If you can’t decide, it’s a draw and you click to see the next pair. After picking, you get to see the real time stats for the photos. What would Web 2.0 be without stats right?

And on and on it goes…There is no limit to how many babies you can compare. And by the way, there are plenty of willing parents, submitting their baby photos and hoping for bragging rights. They even have a ranking of “winningest” babies and “losingest” babies. I had a morbid curiousity and decided to check some figures. I found that no baby so far has won more than 69% of the battles for winningest baby. However, there have been a few losingest babies that lost more than that.

Some might say that I’m being too critical and this is just good natured fun. To be fair here, image quality has a lot to do with which baby gets picked. In fact, Baby vs Baby rejects a lot of photos just over that issue. Also, I suppose this is a clever way to get your little one noticed by ad agencies looking for new talent. But I’ll stick with my opinion on this one. What do you think?