Birds of a feather ...
It’s one of the hazards on the obstacle course of being single.
You meet whom you hope is the love of your life -- someone who looks like Russell Crowe and has Bill Murray’s sense of humor -- and you bring him to your apartment to see if he’s compatible with your beloved orange tabby cat McGwire. And before introductions are made he tells you he’s allergic to cats or even more devastating -- he hates them. Of course, any self-respecting animal lover would show Russell/Bill the door.
Or how about you go to his house nestled in the hills and soon discover much to your dismay and horror that he shares his abode with a boa constrictor named Betty who lives on a steady diet of mice. You can’t get out the door fast enough.
Well, a new online dating service, KissyKat.com, hopes to match singles not only by looks, age and interests, but also by pet compatibility. Currently, there are 78 million cats, 65 million dogs, 17 million birds, 9 million reptiles, 5 million horses and 192 million fish that share their lives with someone in America.
KissyKat is the brainchild of a Mount Arlington, N.J., interactive agency called Candent that focuses on Internet development and branding development for companies and organizations.
Two of the key members of the company met through an online dating service several years ago. “Members of the team also were very passionate about their pets,” says Darren Trautwein, partner and creative director for KissyKat.
“Everyone is a pet owner,” he adds. “I do have a cat.”
The service was conceived about a year and half ago during one of the company’s weekly meetings, as staffers pondered fun projects to pursue.
“The idea came up, why don’t we do an online dating site and why don’t we gear it toward pet and animal lovers,” Trautwein says. “We started working on a brand.”
KissyKat.com was launched on Oct. 21 of this year in the United States and a week later internationally. To date it has 3,500 paid members with about 250 residing in California. KissyKat, says Trautwein, receives anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 hits per day.
The site is attracting pet lovers of all ages. “I think the majority of people fall between 25 and 45 and if you wanted to get even more picky, it would probably be between 30 and 40,” he says.
So far, he reports, the site is attracting more dog and cat owners than exotic pet lovers.
“They are just the biggest group,” he says.
Still, says Trautwein, lizard lovers and even some spider owners have signed up for the service. But there haven’t been any truly exotic pets. “I don’t think we have come across anyone who owns tigers,” he says. “We have some turtle owners. We actually have seen a few who live on a farm and own chickens and sheep and stuff like that.”
Just as most online dating services like Match.com., part of the KissyKat site is free of charge. “You can basically search for other people,” he says. “You can post your own profile and you can participate in the forum and we have a community section as well a pet calendar.”
But if you want to chat with someone who looks appealing and owns an animal you love or can get along with, then you will have to pay.
Fees range from $14.65 for one month to $130 for a year. And members’ pets are featured on the home page.
Because the site is less than two months old, Trautwein says they haven’t pushed their members to find out if a love match as been made. “Sometimes they volunteer it,” he says. “We have received a few e-mails saying, ‘Hey, I met the love of my life on your site.’ I think the first one we got was from Chicago.”
During their research for the site, Trautwein says, they discovered “people who own pets seem to be able to put other people or things in front of them. They are selfless people. They spend so much time taking care of their pet that they realize how to give in a relationship whether it is with their pet or another person. So we kind of found that people who own pets, when they are together, their relationships are a little more healthy and they share a common bond.”
Pets are, he adds, “a great sort of connection tool. When dog owners speak of their dogs to each other, they are very passionate about it. A pet is almost like a person to these people and they spark a lot of interest.”
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KissyKat
What: www.Kissykat.com
Cost: $14.65 monthly; $130 annually
