Petizens.com is a social networking site for pets and their owners. The site allows users to build customized web pages for their pet(s). The pets can have friends, a blog, a profile, and can receive gifts from other pets. The site uses Petopian$ as a currency, and users can earn Petopian$ by adding to their web pages and contributing other content such as articles, photos and videos to the website. The site has an easy to use page editor for building the pet’s web page. The pet’s page has six sections – Media, Friends, Blogs, Stats, Guestbook and Gifts. Users can add as many photos and videos to the page as they wish, and can have multiple blogs per page. Navigation to the rest of the site is done via a convenient top menu bar. Other sections of the site include Home, My Account, View Pets, where users can search for pets based on location or other criteria such as breed or location, Forum, Knowledge (user-contributed articles) and Help. In the Forum section there are specialized forums for dog, cat and other pet owners, sections on health and nutrition and information for new pet owners. The Home page shows a Pet of the Moment, the latest Video posted to the site, the latest Blog post to the site, the Top Pet Worldwide, Top Webpage Worldwide, Top Photo Worldwide and Top Member Worldwide. Shanghai-based Petizens.com was launched in August 2008 by two pet lovers, Per and Tamako Lyngemark. Competition to Petizens.com comes from sites such as Dogster.com, Catster.com and Petster.com. As the names imply, Dogster is a specialized social network for dog owners, Catster for cat owners, and Petster is a site similar to Petizens designed for all kinds of pets. Petizens is similar to all of these sites, but has more useful information about caring for pets, training them, etc. in their Knowledge and Forum sections. The Petizens.com site has a cluttered look and feel. The home page is especially busy. The site is quite responsive however, and page loads happen quickly. The web page editor works quite well, with a convenient drag-and-drop interface. Adding blog posts is an easy process, and uploading of photos and videos is seamless. Navigation is intuitive, with a top menu bar shown on all pages of the site. Advertising is displayed on the site, and can be somewhat obtrusive. Registration to Petizens.com is free and is required to have a web page for the user’s pet. The registration process asks for username, gender, country, email address and password. Validation of the email address is required. A free membership allows the user to upload unlimited photos and videos of their pet(s), but limits the number of stickers and talking bubbles the user can have on their pet’s page. In addition, advertising is displayed on the pet’s web pages. A premium membership is available, and removes the advertising from the user’s pet pages. Premium members also receive more Petopian$ every month, can store scrapbook pages and can add unlimited speech bubbles to their pet’s webpage. A premium membership costs $5 per month, $10 for 3 months, $15 for 6 months, $25 for 12 months, or $100 for a lifetime membership. Users can also buy a Green Card using Petopian$, for 3000 Petopian$ per month. The Green Card gives all of the benefits of the premium membership except for the extra Petopian$ each month. The Petizens.com site is aimed at pet owners worldwide. Any user who wishes to share photos, videos and stories about their pet(s) online will find the site useful. It is easy for user’s to look for other pets and their owners based on similar breeds or on location. Users can give the URL of their pet’s web page to their friends and family so they can keep abreast of all the news about the pet.

• A social networking site for pet owners and their pets
• Users can build a custom web page for their pet(s)
• Pets have a Profile, Friends, Photos, Videos, Blogs and Messaging capabilities
• The site contains a Knowledge section with user-contributed articles about pet ownership
• The site has a Forum area with pet forums on a wide variety of topics
• A premium membership is available which removes advertising and adds capabilities

http://www.petizens.com/