Social networking sites aren’t just for tweens and slackers. Pet owners of all ages have uploaded hundreds of thousands of profile pages for pets at sites like Pawsconnect.com, Zootoo.com and MyCatSpace.com.

“If you asked me three years ago what a social network was, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you,” said Robert Vetere, president of the American Pet Products Association Inc. (Greenwich, Conn.). “Now there are dozens of these sites purely dedicated to pets and pet owners, which is no wonder, given that pet owners spend over $40 billion every year on them.”

A social networking site plugs a user into an online community of people linked by common interests. Pet-specific sites feature an additional layer of connectivity that includes advice, information and service-based links, such as where to find a pet sitter in your area.

“This is the wave of the future,” said Vetere, whose association maintains a Facebook page and three blogs and uploads YouTube videos, Twitter and RSS feeds. “Social networking will continue to grow and become a part of our lives and, apparently, our pets’ lives.”

Zootoo.com reported earlier this year that “hundreds of thousands of pet lovers” voted in its first Pet Lovers’ Choice Awards. “With more than half a million user reviews of pet products and pet professionals, and with 7.6 million votes for the cutest pets, Zootoo.com has achieved what it set out to do: create an online community that reviews and discusses what is good and what is not so good in the pet world,” said Marcello De Luca, chief executive officer.

You don’t even have to own a real pet to take part. FooMojo Inc. (Redwood City, Calif.) created “the world’s most realistic and emotionally engaging virtual pets.”And it’s bankable: FooMojo signed on with Nestle Purina PetCare Co. (St. Louis) and Twentieth Century Fox (Los Angeles) to promote the dog-centric holiday movie “Marley & Me.” In return, Purina Dog Chow is featured as the exclusive virtual pet food on FooPets.com. The site—which offers pets free through applications on Facebook, MySpace and FooPets.com—reports that 1 million subscribers actively log on to play, feed and interact with their adopted friends. [March 2009 PET AGE]