Userplane is in the dog house. Popular pet destinations Dogster and Catster are rolling out Userplane's real-time, one-to-one instant messaging and audio/video chat. Fido and Spot have entered the internet age.

The Dogster and Catster IM player is highly customized to solve a unique challenge: namely, that one user often has several profiles. Each profile uses a particular pet’s name, along with the pet’s photo, as the avatar. Owners of multiple pets usually create separate profiles for each pet. Dogster and Catster designed the IM functionality so that each pet – not each owner – could initiate conversations.

I can barely get my parents to hook up a video-camera and pets are already video-chatting online. Reminds me of the Dutch primate dating service that launched recently. I'm still waiting for the press release announcing a new test that covers 29 dimensions of primate compatibility.

I remember watching a nature documentary on tigers when I was a kid, and the family cat went crazy jumping around and pawing at the screen whenever he saw a tiger. Catster members are sure to be treated to entertaining situations where their cats are walking all over the keyboard while they chat with their feline counterparts.

Make no bones about it, this partnership really purrs.

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