Cat taxi

There was a news story from England doing the rounds the other week about a cat, Sergeant Podge, who leaves his home every evening and appears the next morning over a mile away, in the same place. He waits for his "Mom" to drive over and collect him, which she does without fail, and then takes him back home.
Luckily Mom was tipped off about his whereabouts, but my "pet finder" would have saved her some searching!

Check it out here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7092301.stm

Neighborly inspiration

I met my neighbor last night as he was out looking for his cat. He said "I think she's been going further recently, I saw her up the street the other day." As we stood and talked the cat would come close, then run off again, repeating the pattern over again. I left him to scan the bushes with his flashlight, thinking he would almost certainly buy my cat-sized pet tracker. He could locate his cat when he needed to AND know for sure how far she roamed.

It also made me think about including a flashlight functionality... not sure how this would work, but it would be great if you could turn it on from your mobile device, illuminating the pet so you could spot them in the dark (and making them visible to traffic.)

Batteries

I was thinking today that I should power the pet component of my device with a rechargeable battery.
One of the biggest complaints of consumers that use the other pet-tracking devices on the market is that the batteries run down quickly. Using a rechargeable battery could help keep the cost down maybe, if not with the life of the battery.
Perhaps for version 2 I can plan for a dynamo - using the activity of the pet to power the battery!

I like the sound of this company: http://www.greenbatteries.com/

Stats update

Found newer research into pet owners: 63 percent of all U.S. households own a pet, which adds up to more than 69 million households. That’s an increase from 64 million in 2002 and 51 million in 1988. Americans own approximately 73 million dogs and 90 million cats.

Also, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, “the person most responsible for purchasing pet products is a 46 year old woman.” Pew Research shows that 53% of 30-49 year olds deemed a cell phone a necessity and 60% of the same age group said the same about home computers.

This is not the age range you immediately associate with cell phones and mobile technology, certainly not the higher end of the range. This was a valuable reminder to me that, while my application is useful to most dog and cat owners, the demographic buying it may be older than I had first imagined.

Owner demographics

I was looking into my target market and found this info:

- There are more than 60 million pet dogs in the U.S. and nearly 70 million pet cats.
- The average dog visits its veterinarian almost twice as many times as the average cat or horse.
- Dog owning households spent almost 38 percent more in 2001 as they did in 1996.

http://www.avma.org/reference/marketstats/sourcebook.asp

This tells me that there are a lot of pets out there, and that their owners are spending a lot of money on them! The "pet goods" market is big business, people are willing to spend their money to keep their animal safe and well, which bodes well for my application.

Similar but not the same

I've not found any other applications that do what I'm proposing mine will do, but there are some on the market that do one part or the other:
http://www.clickapps.com/moreinfo.htm?pid=5693&section=PPC&r=dwayhttp://www.clickapps.com/moreinfo.htm?pid=5693&section=PPC&r=dway

www.go2.com/webbrowser/indexPetsLanding.cfm?CFID=11016&CFTOKEN=90864751

www.globalpetfinder.com

More functionality...

A directory of local vets, pet stores, kennels, groomers, pet sitters, etc, should also be available via my application. Maybe with user reviews so owners can get a steer towards the ones worth trying and avoid the not-so-goods.
The website petfinder.com goes some way to achieving this, but I'd like to see more categories.