Dogs can wear a tag to help their owners make new friends; now pet owners can return the favour by using Dogtree, a social networking site designed especially for dogs.

Australian Dogtree is a free service that aims to help dog owners find playmates and walking friends for their canine companions. To search for doggie friends, human users can simply enter their postal code; more advanced search options are also available, such as breed and size. Either way, the result is a list of other suitable canine members in their area. Once they find some that seem like a good match, dog owners can invite them through the site for a playdate or meeting. There are currently almost 600 members on Dogtree, and most elect to use their dog’s photo and name as their username on the site.

Need we say more? Now that social networking has covered most of the developed world’s human population, niche applications are coming fast and furious—and even extending to some of mankind’s best friends. Cats may be less amenable to the social networking experience, we suspect, but how long before this comes to other sociable species? Advertisers of related products: get ready, or get involved!

So what do Neoco think of it… This is a great way of showing the power of niche social networks and how people cluster around particular activities or interests. There can also be real power for brands to build strong relationships with relevant audiences through these channels – imagine if this was set up by Pedigree Chum or Petsmart, what a great initiative. It’s this thinking that Neoco work with clients to deliver – just look at our successful I Love Design platform for Quark XPress.

Credit to Springwise for original story

Both myself and Benn will be at June’s Facebook Developers Garage, next Wednesday 4th from 18.30. This month it’s going to cover: VOIP apps for Facebook, Facebook desktop apps and Facebook connect – as well as all the regular updates.

So come down and see us for the latest news on the platform and learn about the new apps to watch. Or if you can’t make it, get in touch and we’ll give you a lowdown.

We have just delivered a customised version of our new ChatBox application for Sony Ericsson, which enabled their Head of Region CEEMEA and over 400 employees across 104 countries to hold a 60 minute live chat session over the internet and mobile phones.

The chat session had a high engagement rate with Sony Ericsson’s key staff and we delivered a transcript of the entire chat session to Sony Ericsson’s PR agency Brando, for internal PR use.

ChatBox is our unique online ‘chat’ platform which enables brands to hold live, interactive and moderated chats with their employees, consumers or anyone they want to talk to! To request information on ChatBox or find out what ChatBox can do for your brand, contact Benn or Laura.

This week has seen hi5 become a victim of their own success, as their runaway growth has come with some some growing pains.

Over the last month, third-party developers have launched over 400 OpenSocial apps on hi5’s network. These apps have has faster adoption rates than those on any other social network. The hi5 platform has averaged at around a million application installs every day and around half of hi5’s 80 million members have engaged with three or more installed apps.

Mashable spoke to hi5 developers to find out the secrets to their success – the short version being that they just put together a really solid service and happened to quickly tap into a broad cross-section of countries. Their really impressive application statistics are continually attributed to their uniquely international userbase.

However, their success has come with some growing pains and Justin Smith at Inside Facebook has told Mashable: “Hi5 for a brief period turned off all platform notifications. However, Hi5 has since restored platform notification service to developers by making some changes to the way notifications work. Specifically, notifications are now processed asynchronously.  Hi5 will be continuing conversations with developers that are using notifications the most.”

See the full Mashable blog and hear their conversation at: http://mashable.com/2008/04/29/hi5-growth/