.Discovery Communications Buys Petfinder.com and Petvideo.com
In a growing trend of television media companies acquiring websites, Discovery Communications, purchased the respected online pet adoption site Petfinder.com, as well as a newer company by the same founders, PetsIncredible, producers of pet-related DVDs and the new, small petvideo.com for about $35 million. Both companies will be folded into Discovery’s newly formed group Animal Planet Media Enterprises, which includes the Animal Planet network. Now that Petfinder is part of a publicly traded company I believe that leaves just us and the American Kennel Club as the biggest independent pet-related web destinations.
This is a new foray for Discovery, which was having difficult times in 2005. For years Petfinder.com was the definitive site to post and find pets needing a new home, though it feels like it’s been on cruise control for some years now. We have huge respect for Petfinder and even made a conscious decision not to compete with their important service and risk devaluing the life-saving connections they created.
We’re happy that the PetFinder owners were able to profit from all their hard work, but acquisitions are not always great for users. Discovery is a big company and is forced to focus on profit before all else. It will be very interesting to see what the combination of services will bring and if Petfinder’s respect status as a trusted non-corporate service will remain as high.
On cruise control? Your concept of cruise is different than mine. The site recently signed up its 10,000th member. It developed the animal emergency rescue website in the midst of Katrina. It has always been about getting pets adopted and Animal Planet with its wide reach will make the reach of Petfinder even greater.
Dogster could be doing a LOT more for the plight of the homeless and unwanted.
Since overpopulation is the number one killer of dogs, why not focus on a theme like spay/neuter?
Dogster could be moving some small mountains and making the world a lot better for dogs
Hi Cara,
I bet we could and if there are any members that do not know why spaying and neutering is so important then we aren’t doing our job well enough.
But moving mountains are hard because we’re still so small. Note that we 100% forbid anyone to buy/sell/stud/litter in anyway on our sites. Seems obvious but it’s a lot of work policing every page, but we simply wouldn’t have it any other way.
Also check out our forums where we facilitate a lot of important rescue and dog health and rescue knowledge
http://www.dogster.com/forums/Shelters_Rescue_and_Fostering
http://www.dogster.com/forums/Adoption_and_Happy_Endings
http://www.dogster.com/forums/Dog_Health
http://www.dogster.com/forums/Dogster_Railroad
We also make it very easy for people to find rescues:
http://www.dogster.com/assign_stroll.php?o=q
http://www.catster.com/assign_stroll.php?o=q
But I agree we could do more to help aware people to not let mistakes happen in the first place. We’ll see what we can do.