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Elten Logis was unsatisfied with the level of interaction among parents at his children's school. It's hardly an unusual situation: Like others, his work schedule often precluded meeting his fellow-parents, which would have given him peace of mind when his sons visited their new friends’ homes or forgot their class notes at school.

After a few failed attempts to maintain parent-centric Facebook groups (Facebook allows too much access to personal information for such a niche group, Logis said), he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Enter Bambizo, a dedicated social network for parents of school-aged children. An adaptation of the word Italian word for baby, bambino, Bambizo allows parents to create or join an existing “class” within the virtual network for their children’s school where they can post and reply to questions (such as “Can anyone take Mary to school tomorrow?”), updates (location of a new school bus stop, for example), events (i.e., birthday parties, school functions), private messages, and photos.

Designed for a type of so-called “microcommunity” – a niche group whose members share a particular interest, identity, or location – Bambizo represents a newer type of targeted social network, operating in contrast to the blanket approach of behemoths like Facebook and Twitter. The specified focus of the micro-network, Logis believes, makes it particularly utile (the information is relevant to the group) and efficient (more targeted updates reduce time spent on browsing) for its users, placing it in a prime position for rampant adoption.

“For the last few years it’s been smaller social sharing that has gotten the most buzz instead of large networks of people. I believe [a] ‘small social’ surge is starting,” he said.

What’s more, Bambizo ostensibly maintains a higher degree of privacy than most other social media. To keep the groups limited to parents of students, each user must be approved by the group creator before joining. Also, the network doesn’t collect more data than is logically necessary. “Bambizo only collects the kid’s name, parent’s name, and email address. All people see is ‘Jake’s Mom’ or ‘Natalie’s Dad’, because that’s all that really matters,” Logis said.

The five-person company isn’t seeking investors at the moment as they're currently bootstrapping.

Bambizo is, however, preparing to introduce new features for parent-to-parent communication. “We will be adding few different functionalities. One of them is finding [a] playdate, which will allow parents to find playdates for [their] son or daughter from the same or nearby school and within similar school grade range,” Logis said.

Whether it represents a shifting public relationship with social media remains to be seen, but Logis might be onto something if he continues to focus on “all that really matters.”