2007.09.25
Dogster and Catster
I really didn’t think I was a pet-obsessed or a computer dork, until, in an ultimate moment of pet-loving cyber-nerdishness, I created home pages for my pup on Dogster.com.
Dogster is a Web site created by self-described “dog freaks and computer geeks as a “My Space” for dog lovers and their pooches. Providing doggie home pages on the Web since January of 2004, the San Francisco-based site boasts over 400,000 members and averages 17 million page views per month.
A sister site, Catster.com was also launched in 2004, a few months after Dogster.
Cats, you know, are always fashionably late to the party.
On Dogster and Catster, you can view videos, read blogs, join breed-specific forum groups, find links to other pet-related sites and, of course, shop for products. You can create personal pages for your furry family members for free, but free pages will automatically have ads embedded in them; for a monthly or annual fee you can upgrade to a premium membership that keeps all pages on your account ad-free.
I spent about an hour creating a page for our dog and one of our cats (the other cat is notoriously camera-shy and adamantly anti-technology.) I uploaded photos, wrote little biographies and browsed a few forums dedicated to greyhounds.
Just like on people-centered social network sites like “My Space” and “Facebook,” you can accept or decline invitations from other canines and felines to be online friends. Within hours, my pets had several new cyber-pals. I am pretty sure there are some savvy programmers out there who send pal-invitations to all new members, thus collecting thousands of new friends. One such invitation came from a dog named Crackers, whose long white beard and leather biker jacket make him look like he starred in a ZZ Top video from the 1980s; a little weird in my opinion.
The site is easy to navigate and family-friendly so kids can help create the family pet page. Log in and enjoy hours of tail-wagging fun. Just don’t get so caught up in cyber pet parenting you forget to interact with the real dog, like the one lying at my feet while I wrote this blog entry.
