App Of The Week: ‘Wooof’ Could Become The Waze Of Dog Owners

App Name: Wooof Available For: iOS  Price: Free Developer: Wooof Network Apps Ltd

The Promise: The experience for you and your dog.

Dog owners love to meet each other at public parks and gardens, sitting and chatting about their best furry friends while their dogs are busy running around and sniffing each other.

While social networks for dog lovers are nothing new, many of the available applications seem to be missing two key features: time and location. Now, a new Israeli app called Wooof is trying to improve the social experience for dog owners and lovers.

Wooof allows you to create a social profile for your dog with full details like their name, gender, breed, and even a picture. After completing this stage, the app allows you to go out there and meet some new four-legged friends and their proud “parents.” You start your activity by tapping the “start to walk” button. The app then acts like an activity tracker that displays your location on a map. Other dog owners who are app users can now see you and contact you (and vice versa), maybe even meet up with you mid-walk. The map also shows you popular parks and gardens nearby where you can find more dog-loving friends.

The app also has a cute “Instagram-like” dog photo feed with the latest adorable dog pictures from all over the country. In addition to the feed, you can post and read dog-related tips, find vets, pet shops, dog walkers and even warn your friends about the poo pick-up police. Did anyone say Waze for dogs?

     SEE ALSO: App Of The Week: ‘Clean’- The App That Makes It Easy To Delete Old Photos

Our Experience

The app has a nice look to it, and gives off a kind of vintage feel. The illustrations are great to make you feel at home in this dog lovers community. I was surprised by the relatively high numbers of users for such a new app. Being able to see other dog owners walking their dogs on the live map is a great plus, and the feed is updated every few minutes. There were a couple of bugs in the setup stage (Facebook login and dog profile creation), but I’m pretty sure these will be fixed in later versions. One thing I was less enthusiastic about at the end of my walk was when the app asked me to rate the quality of my dog’s “waste”, which felt a little unnecessary (and  bizarre), although it was presented in a humorous way.

What did we score? For Real???

Bottom-line, with this kind of app, it’s less about the great user experience and design and more about the marketing skills and timing of the team behind it. So to know whether Wooof could be the next successful social network for dog owners, we’ll just have to wait and see.

The Verdict

Download Wooof here.