Dogster: good idea, not for me

June 27, 2007 at 6:30 am Leave a comment

Those of you who know me personally, know that I just adopted a Pug, named Linus P Alexander (I didn’t name him, but the name is quite close to one I would have chosen). I love him. He is perfect. And all those other things that new moms say about their new additions.

So, being a member of what sometimes feels like EVERY online community myself, I, of course, signed Linus up for a Dogster profile. I have seen the Dogster guys a couple times at community conferences and have been intrigued with the idea of an online community for dogs. Talk about a central theme to bring your users together – people LURV their dogs. That’s exactly the point of this post.

I make his page, write a couple fatcs about him, upload a couple pictures and then do a search for other pugs (they ARE adorable). I soon find there are pug groups within dogster and join a couple. Not 5 minutes later, I get 4 emails from the group members welcoming me and inviting me to various virtual pug events. If the immediate love wasn’t a bit overwhelming, the content in the love was. All of the people who emailed me spoke in the voice of their pug. Like, totally in the voice of their pug. Complete personalities, backstories, dramas – wow! A couple more clicks of exploring, I even found a dating area – and not for the humans. Profiles of “single dogs looking for love”!

All that said, it is a vibrant community who is completely serving their users. They have talked about their ad model and their transperancy with it and their community practices at conferences. They are doing everything right AND they are profitable. Kudos to them! Just not my cup of tea.

I do have a little badge of Linus’s page in the right column of this blog. Check him out, I just may not “hound” it as much as I do my own profiles…

Joi Podgorny