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Ask HN: Please review my weekend project: a dating website for dogs
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- Roridge 17y agoIt sound crazy, but it actually has promise. I don't know about dogs finding "love" so much, but breeders might find it useful in that sense.
- thibaut_barrere 17y agoI believe the side-effect of having owners meet is very valuable (just like having a kid around actually helps to start a conversation with someone). This may come out as a dog-owner dating site :)
- coryl 17y agoMakes more sense that way, a dog breeding network is too niche and small. Dating/recreational activities for dog owners might be better.
- frederickcook 17y agoThere is nothing wrong with niche and small when you're dealing with an affluent populations such as recreational dog breeders. There are people that may pay hundreds of dollars per year for a high-quality service.
- romland 17y agobut breeders might find it useful in that sense I think you underestimate how breeders work. They have a huge network in place and in most countries there are national organizations aimed at "dogs finding love". :) You know, pedigree and all that jazz. There may be a market for this, but to cater to it you'd have to be much less cute and more professional. And while on the topic of actually getting offspring from this "love", it might not be such a good idea to have any random Joe off the street get the idea to have "ooooh puppies!" and then down the line realize that having eight of them at eight weeks old is ... actually quite the job (and at this point things get nasty). Add to that that some dogs just should not breed due to various weaknesses, excessive inbreeding in the past yada yada. That was a tangent, but to respond to poster: dogs/owners running around having a playmate for a few hours, great. :)
- pwim 17y agoI can't see anything without creating an account. Perhaps expose some data to logged out users so they can get a better idea what the service is about. Also, you don't have any traditional method to contact you (just facebook and twitter). An email address would be nice.
- alnayyir 17y agoOkay, you made me laugh. Points for that. Jesus.
- Confusion 17y agoI think you should realize that it may turn out you will actually primarily cater to dog owners looking for dates with other dog owners.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- d0m 17y agoWell, you really thought it was for dogs?
- FreeRadical 17y agoI did.
- rev_null 17y agoOr people pretending to be dogs to score dates. On the internet, nobody knows you're not a dog.
- akd 17y agoYou should make it more tailored (but not explicitly mention that) it's for dog owners to meet each other. For example, meeting other "friendly dogs and dog owners" or something like that. Everyone knows it's not for doggie breeding, most pets are spayed or neutered.
- Snoddas 17y ago"most pets are spayed or neutered" {{citation needed}}
- btilly 17y agohttp://ezinearticles.com/?Spay-and-Neuter-Statistics&id=1421183 http://ezinearticles.com/?Spay-and-Neuter-Statistics&id=... claims 75% of pet dogs and 87% of pet cats are neutered. Of course when a single female cat can make over a dozen kittens per year, this is still not high enough to avoid the obvious problems.
- Snoddas 17y agoWow, what a difference from here in Sweden. While cats are are about 70% fixed for dogs the number is MUCH smaller, 7% for females and 4% for males. But we don't have a wild-dog problem here, leave a dog out unattended over the winter and it's pretty much guaranteed that it will be dead come spring. Cat's seem to do much better somehow.
- stuntmouse 17y agoNeeds pictures, even stock photos would be a start. Try 99designs for a decent logo. Agreed that this site has some promise.
- wavesplash 17y agoThat's exactly how dogster.com started, a free dating site for dogs (walking dates, etc) which lead to more than the occasional real date for single owners. There are/were a few clones too. One question is why dogster.com, who was clearly the leader, shifted direction towards being more of a portal and less of a dating site.
- edanm 17y agoA few comments about the basic design of the front page. I'm not a designer or anything, so take with a grain of salt. The design is nice, but has a little bit of a "thrown together" look: the different things on the page don't really seem like they belong together. I'd recommend a few things: 1. Align the logo of the site to the left (aligned with the text below). 2. Since I assume your subscription form at the bottom is not the most important thing, I'd make it much smaller, and move it to the right (someplace more out of the way). Where it is now, it looks like it should be the login form. 3. On that note, I'd move the login form to where the subscription form is now, and make it much bigger. Also, I'd probably make the "new user" link even bigger than that, since you'll mostly be getting new users for now. I'd probably make it a separate, very large, "call to action" button, and center it in the screen (ala Drop Box). 4. Last thing: I don't know what plentyoffish.com is, and that's in the first sentence of your site. You really don't want me leaving your site first thing.
- pnelly 17y agoI think that each dog's profile should glow red when they are 'in heat'...
- NEPatriot 17y agoI would add some benefit to signing up for your newsletter. By signing up what do I get?
- olliesaunders 17y agoIf purpose of the page is to get people to sign up, change the design to push that: explain, with pictures and text, what people will get/see if they sign up, and have a big, obvious, unintimidating, sign up form.