• The New York Times, Monday, November 19, 2007 12 PM

NBC Universal and Procter & Gamble have opened a Web portal-- Petside.com--for pet owners that offers a full menu of information about dogs, cats and other creatures, from the serious (how to diagnose your pet's illnesses) to the silly (funny animal videos). There are also links to shopping sites, and visitors are encouraged to set up social networking profiles in order to meet other pet owners.

P&G plans to market its Iams pet food and Febreze air freshener there, and NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric, is promoting some of its programs. But Petside will be open to any advertiser, including companies with products that compete with P&G. "Keeping it narrowly defined as a Procter thing would not let it acknowledge its potential," says Jim Stengel, P&G's global marketing officer.

NBC is selling the ads on Petside as well as across a new "pet ad network" on other sites. The Petside content will also be syndicated onto external social networking sites and video sites.

Read the whole story at The New York Times »