Dog's Trust launches Doggysnaps.com social networking site
Howard Lake | 7 November 2006 | News
The Dog’s Trust has launched a photo-sharing site for dog owners and lovers along the lines of Flickr.com and other Web 2.0 sites, creating an online community or social network of dog lovers that offers intriguing fundraising potential.
Registered users can upload photos to the site and add details of their dog. They can then find similar breeds on the site and others who share the same interests. They can add updates about their dog and comment on other people’s pictures and information, and discuss their interests on the forums.
The service is provided at no charge, but Dog’s Trust require contributors to donate the rights to their photos and content to the charity. The charity is clearly planning to generate income from the content, perhaps by licensing images or creating calendars for sale.
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The site includes information from the charity about dog welfare and a donate now button, but otherwise focuses on the photos and other doggy content. Blogs and other new content services are due for launch soon.
It adopts a very light and humorous tone. The 404 page not found message, for example, has been changed to “Oops! You forgot to put your collar on and seem to be a little lost.”
Within a few weeks of launch, the site already boasts over 3,500 dog photos. According to Tim Malbon of site designers Interesource, “the traffic generated by the site is already the same level as the dogstrust.org.uk website, with users busy commenting on each others photographs and comparing notes looking after their pets.”
He added that “DoggySnaps is a very interesting example of how a charity can both make money and attract new visitors to their campaigns using web 2.0 disruptive models”.
In effect, “the trust has turned itself inside out to provide a platform for their audience to be able to talk about and share what they are interested in without any direction or intervention”.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.