A few weeks ago, a colleague told me about a social networking site for dogs called Dogster. Just for fun (and "market research") I quickly created a site for my golden, Lucy. Within about two minutes after I posted the site, Lucy had already gotten requests from three other dogs (Pebbles, Ellie Mae, and Koko) to be their "Pup Pals." Of course, I approved of these friendship requests and they were quickly added to the page. Lucy now has a total of 12 pup pals, she has been "corraled" once (my another dog who really likes her), and she has received one "bone," one "star," and one "rosette" from other Dogster users. Of course, I'm very proud of her popularity but the fact remains that LUCY IS A DOG and cannot use a computer!!

 

Now I realize that these "pet" sites are really designed for people, and primarily intended to sell advertising space to companies that produce pet-related products. I think the human users see the sites as a way to show off their pets (and, yes, Lucy is adorable and should be appreciated by all fellow dog lovers). Some dog owners go so far as to create "diaries" for their pets, written in the third person. One of Lucy's "pals," Koko, has more than 5,000 "pals" on the site. I admit, for the first few days, I was excited to log on to Dogster and see how many more people had seen her profile. I also created a page for her English Setter brother, Jake (he's cute too). We joined the "Arizona Goldens" group as well as the "E-Setters." But, after the initial novelty of it, I really can't imagine spending a whole lot of time browsing around on the site or updating the profiles.

As another point of comparison, a few months ago I created a page on Facebook, again purely for market research purposes. I am somewhat ashamed to say that, to date, I only have two "friends" on this site (one guy I never met but I contacted for my research project and another guy I went to college with "way back when"). I have joined a few interest groups, uploaded some photos, and searched my "networks" to find out how people use this site. Clearly, most people my age aren't on Facebook. But, I have also seen that many groups of incoming MWU students have used this site to meet each other before the first day of class, find roommates or get advice on apartments, and even plan parties.

When we first launched our current version of the MWU web site in 2002, we created "InteractNow" as a kind of social networking site. Some students have used it in that way, but we know it is limited as an "institutional" web feature that you might not feel completely comfortable "being yourself" on. InteractNow is fairly unique amongst health professional schools and does provide some great features. As we work to revise our web site and enhance InteractNow and other content on the web, I'm curious: What do you see as the future of social networking on-line? Do you use InteractNow? What features do you find valuable? What additional things would you like to see added?

I'm interested in your feedback or comments. Between Dogster and Facebook, I have tried to get some first-hand knowledge of social networking, and we want to be creative and innovative in providing on-line features that are meaningful to prospective students and applicants. Let us know what you think. And, gosh, don't you think Lucy is cute too?!

Just FYI: I'm off on vacation next week for a hiking trip to Yosemite National Park. I'll be back to blogging on August 6.