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July 18, 2006
Dogster Metrics And Its Business Model
We mentioned Dogster in an earlier post today without explaining why it is on the alarm:clock euro's radar. It's because it is backed by Jeff Clavier, the French business angel based in Silicon Valley, now backing several emerging Web 2.0 ventures.
Since we attempt to track successful European tech entrepreneurial types no matter where they are, he's one we try to watch.
Clavier told us that Dogster and Catster are community sites for owners to share pictures and diaries of their pets. He announced back in March that he was backing the founders of Dogster Inc who apparently started up the sites as a parody of Friendster, and the like.
But the site became popular, now with a quarter of a million active profiles set up by pet owners that mainly hail from North America and the UK, said Clavier. Is is apparently a successful business that has built a brand with pulling power for targeted advertising, which surprised us here.
As an example of its success in targeting and serving a distinct segment of the consumer population, and "providing compelling brand integration to advertisers", Clavier points to Dogster's advertising rate (about $5 cpm currently). He said that it is higher than that of MySpace, some 50 times higher.
"Nice niche business indeed, when you consider that the pet industry is worth about $36B a year," said Clavier.
Some Dogster metrics for your perusal: the top dogs are labs and Chihuahuas. More than 18,000 Labrador Retrievers and 11,000 Chihuahuas are registered. Most "members" are purebreds, some 12000 or so, but mutts and rescues also have a good representation with about 6000 each.
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Listen - Podcast Interview With Jeff Clavier By Weblogs Work, a Dallas-based marketing consultancy focused on social media. (odeo)
Posted on July 18, 2006 07:40 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | entrepreneurship | Permalink
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