Social networks for dogs, bikes & sneakers

By Paul Thomasch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A San Francisco native who loves the beach, parks, running and dancing, Marco has easily made connections over the Internet, racking up 5,200 on his profile. Not bad for a 4-year-old Miniature Schnauzer.

Marco is just one of thousands of dogs with a Web profile on Dogster.com, an online community featuring pet photos posted by owners along with pooch videos, diaries and travel tips.

Dogs not your thing? Cat people can go to Catster.com; car lovers can put their ride on Boompa.com, and there's Sneakerplay.com for those who are crazy about ... well, sneakers. Obsessed with your bike or motorcycle? Give them a profile on Velospace.org or Motortopia.com.

These are just some of the sites dubbed "passion-centric" or "object-oriented" communities, a niche alternative to the most popular social sites like Facebook.com or MySpace.com, which draw a wide audience with millions of students and young professionals.

"These are about adults sharing about what they are passionate about in a safe, fun, informative environment," said Ted Rheingold, 37, who founded Dogster and its sister site, Catster.

"You're not sharing names, or your photo. Nobody is saying your music is stupid," he added.

Whereas Facebook or MySpace profiles would feature a person -- say, John Smith -- passion-oriented communities focus on an object or area of interest. It could be a bike, a car, a pet or anything else that may be the center of your world.

"The best thing about this is you're able to connect with people from all over the world who are into the same thing," said Robleh Jama, 25, co-founder of Sneakerplay.

"You're able to build a meaningful relationship and friendship over something like shoes," he said.

Jama started Sneakerplay last year, using an invitation-only system and building a community around pictures of sneakers -- some trashy, some classic, some rare, and some just plain common.

"I've always been big into sneakers, into basketball," Jama said. "One day I was talking to a buddy and I threw out the idea that wouldn't it be cool to create a site where we could dial up sneakers and see what's out there. A community to show off our kicks, show off our personalities."

About 11,000 members are now part of the community, which has galleries, contests, a blog and a forum where people can talk about fashion, shopping, basketball or anything else. Last year, a gift exchange cropped up during the holidays.

But in the end, Jama says, it's about the sneakers.

"In the real world, that's how we usually connect with people. Over our interests -- basketball, sneaker shopping," he said.

"A COMMON PASSION"