Remember Tamagotchis , those digital pets-on-a-keychain marketed by Bandai starting in about 1996? You could feed them virtual food, exercise them and even clean up after them. But the experience was about as realistic as inviting the Pac-Mans home to dinner; if not cared for promptly when an alarm sounded, they could sicken, starve and die within a day or so.

The company still sells them and said its total sales hit 10 million units by the middle of 2005. But chances are good that a large proportion of those little digital critters took their last virtual breaths in the back of junk drawers somewhere, out of sight of owners who took a silent oath never to actually own a real live dog or cat.

Well, the Web makes everything better, and virtual pets are back. And this time they’ve got better 3-D animation, more realistic behavior, and some pet care sponsorship deals—even a movie tie-in.

Veterinarian Dr. Ron Hornbaker began writing his own software programs to help run his practice back in the mid-‘90s and got so interested that he spent the next decade launching a series of Web start-ups, including a real estate listing site and one mashing up Web traffic stats for Internet domains. But he never lost his interest in the care and feeding of animals, and in 2007 he founded FooMojo to develop a virtual pet game for the Internet.

The company came out early last year with a Facebook application called Pokey that let people adopt a highly animated virtual dog, buy it brand-name dog food, give it medical care and toss a Frisbee to it. The app has racked up almost a million users in the network and earned a user rating of 4.3 stars out of 5—but more on that in a minute.

Now FooMojo is looking to expand its pet-centric universe with a new Web site, www.FooPets.com, launched in December 2007, along with a FooPets app for the iPhone. The animation is even more realistic; headquartered in Redwood City CA, FooMojo has access to the talent spillover from animation hotbeds such as Pixar and Disney. There are now about a dozen breeds to choose from, and users can pick a cat as well as a dog.

The company incorporates several different revenue streams. While basic membership is free, it sells premium memberships that allow users to adopt more than one pet. Users also can buy FooDollars which they can then spend on the pet food they need every day, pet medications, and scenery for their pets’ homes. (They can also earn free FooDollars by adopting abandoned FooPets, referring friends and logging in daily.)

The smallest revenue stream, but one expected to grow, is from brand sponsorships and association. Right now FooPet owners in the U.S. can buy virtual single-serve bags of Purina Puppy or Kitten Chow, styled to look exactly like the products available from the Nestle Purina brand in supermarkets.

FooPets were also used by Twentieth Century Fox to promote the December launch of the movie “Marley & Me”. Users on the Facebook, Web site or iPhone apps could adopt a virtual copy of the golden retriever puppy featured in the movie and access animated scenes recreated from the film.

In bringing pet ownership online, Hornbaker says, FooMojo is interested in offering users as realistic an experience as possible—up to a point—in order to give them a fully rounded picture of what real pet ownership entails.

For example, beyond simply feeding their pets and showing them affection—tossing them a ball or tickling them with the mouse cursor–FooPet owners also have to tend to their animals’ medical well-being with monthly doses of heartworm medication, flea collars and the like. These elements cost FooDollars, so owners are forced to make some decisions about budget allocation: They can invest in the preventive medical care their pet needs to thrive, or they can buy a tricked-out virtual dog bed and pay the virtual vet bills later if something goes wrong.

Users also need to make sure that someone else takes over pet-care duties if they’re unable to go online and do it themselves. Animals that are left untended long enough get removed by the Web site administrators. The owners can eventually get them back by paying a fine, or the animals can wind up in the FooPet shelter waiting for adoption.

Hornbaker anticipates finding pet-care suppliers who are interested in being represented among that virtual inventory too. “Eventually the FooMart will look just like an online PetSmart or Petco, with the same items and brands available,” he says. “Users will be able to choose among different brands of the same products and can discuss the different advantages of each for their virtual pets—and for real ones, if they have them.”

FooPet users are also a pretty desirable demographic for marketers: about 85% female and spanning the age range from 18 to 45, with a high concentration of young mothers 25 and up, many of whom visit the site with their kids as a family activity online.

“The Purinas and the Science Diets of the world want to reach passionate pet owners just like we do,” Hornbaker says. “We want to give them the means to educate consumers just as we do, so manufacturers will be able to upload pictures of their heartworm pills or dog-training aids or jerky treats. Our users will be able to purchase them through the virtual economy, and everybody wins. People get to learn about products, and manufacturers will get great exposure among passionate pet lovers.”

That passion came to the fore in December when FooMojo launched the Web site and performed a simultaneous upgrade on the Facebook Pokey app. In one swoop, thousands of Facebook virtual pet owners were suddenly faced with the disappearance of the animals they had tended for months. The Facebook FooPets page still contains a lot of reviews from disgruntled users unhappy about the way the transition was made and worried that their lost digital dogs were wasting away without care—and right before Christmas, as one enraged former owner pointed out.

Hornbaker says the company knew the changeover would be rough but was somewhat surprised by the vehemence of the outcry, which he says came from less than 1% of the user base. “I think it’s going in the right direction now,” he says less than a month after the Facebook upgrade. “We’re trying to do what the users want, because they are king.” For example, the Facebook app reinstated the original more cartoonish Pokey virtual pet for those users who wanted him.

Right now, FooMojo has two strategic aims for its virtual pets: to make them more portable and to design a full-fledged virtual space so that owners and their pets can meet up and interact with others. The iPhone app is a start toward letting FooPet owners carry their animals with the everywhere, and that will continue. The virtual FooPet world is further out but still in the cards at the right development point, Hornbaker says.

In the short term, though, FooMojo has two smaller tasks: to keep up with the demand for animated versions of the 250-some dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club; and coming to a final decision on the poop-scooping question.

“We know some people like the convenience, ease and lack of mess in owning a virtual pet, while others get into the high-maintenance experience, even when that means picking up poop,” Hornbaker says. “We haven’t decided if we’re going to go that far into realism, but we do have people asking for it.”

Remember Tamagotchis , those digital pets-on-a-keychain marketed by Bandai starting in about 1996? You could feed them virtual food, exercise them and even clean up after them. But the experience was about as realistic as inviting the Pac-Mans home to dinner; if not cared for promptly when an alarm sounded, they could sicken, starve and die within a day or so.

The company still sells them and said its total sales hit 10 million units by the middle of 2005. But chances are good that a large proportion of those little digital critters took their last virtual breaths in the back of junk drawers somewhere, out of sight of owners who took a silent oath never to actually own a real live dog or cat.

Well, the Web makes everything better, and virtual pets are back. And this time they’ve got better 3-D animation, more realistic behavior, and some pet care sponsorship deals—even a movie tie-in.

Veterinarian Dr. Ron Hornbaker began writing his own software programs to help run his practice back in the mid-‘90s and got so interested that he spent the next decade launching a series of Web start-ups, including a real estate listing site and one mashing up Web traffic stats for Internet domains. But he never lost his interest in the care and feeding of animals, and in 2007 he founded FooMojo to develop a virtual pet game for the Internet.

The company came out early last year with a Facebook application called Pokey that let people adopt a highly animated virtual dog, buy it brand-name dog food, give it medical care and toss a Frisbee to it. The app has racked up almost a million users in the network and earned a user rating of 4.3 stars out of 5—but more on that in a minute.

Now FooMojo is looking to expand its pet-centric universe with a new Web site, www.FooPets.com, launched in December 2007, along with a FooPets app for the iPhone. The animation is even more realistic; headquartered in Redwood City CA, FooMojo has access to the talent spillover from animation hotbeds such as Pixar and Disney. There are now about a dozen breeds to choose from, and users can pick a cat as well as a dog.

The company incorporates several different revenue streams. While basic membership is free, it sells premium memberships that allow users to adopt more than one pet. Users also can buy FooDollars which they can then spend on the pet food they need every day, pet medications, and scenery for their pets’ homes. (They can also earn free FooDollars by adopting abandoned FooPets, referring friends and logging in daily.)

The smallest revenue stream, but one expected to grow, is from brand sponsorships and association. Right now FooPet owners in the U.S. can buy virtual single-serve bags of Purina Puppy or Kitten Chow, styled to look exactly like the products available from the Nestle Purina brand in supermarkets.

FooPets were also used by Twentieth Century Fox to promote the December launch of the movie “Marley & Me”. Users on the Facebook, Web site or iPhone apps could adopt a virtual copy of the golden retriever puppy featured in the movie and access animated scenes recreated from the film.

In bringing pet ownership online, Hornbaker says, FooMojo is interested in offering users as realistic an experience as possible—up to a point—in order to give them a fully rounded picture of what real pet ownership entails.

For example, beyond simply feeding their pets and showing them affection—tossing them a ball or tickling them with the mouse cursor–FooPet owners also have to tend to their animals’ medical well-being with monthly doses of heartworm medication, flea collars and the like. These elements cost FooDollars, so owners are forced to make some decisions about budget allocation: They can invest in the preventive medical care their pet needs to thrive, or they can buy a tricked-out virtual dog bed and pay the virtual vet bills later if something goes wrong.

Users also need to make sure that someone else takes over pet-care duties if they’re unable to go online and do it themselves. Animals that are left untended long enough get removed by the Web site administrators. The owners can eventually get them back by paying a fine, or the animals can wind up in the FooPet shelter waiting for adoption.

Hornbaker anticipates finding pet-care suppliers who are interested in being represented among that virtual inventory too. “Eventually the FooMart will look just like an online PetSmart or Petco, with the same items and brands available,” he says. “Users will be able to choose among different brands of the same products and can discuss the different advantages of each for their virtual pets—and for real ones, if they have them.”

FooPet users are also a pretty desirable demographic for marketers: about 85% female and spanning the age range from 18 to 45, with a high concentration of young mothers 25 and up, many of whom visit the site with their kids as a family activity online.

“The Purinas and the Science Diets of the world want to reach passionate pet owners just like we do,” Hornbaker says. “We want to give them the means to educate consumers just as we do, so manufacturers will be able to upload pictures of their heartworm pills or dog-training aids or jerky treats. Our users will be able to purchase them through the virtual economy, and everybody wins. People get to learn about products, and manufacturers will get great exposure among passionate pet lovers.”

That passion came to the fore in December when FooMojo launched the Web site and performed a simultaneous upgrade on the Facebook Pokey app. In one swoop, thousands of Facebook virtual pet owners were suddenly faced with the disappearance of the animals they had tended for months. The Facebook FooPets page still contains a lot of reviews from disgruntled users unhappy about the way the transition was made and worried that their lost digital dogs were wasting away without care—and right before Christmas, as one enraged former owner pointed out.

Hornbaker says the company knew the changeover would be rough but was somewhat surprised by the vehemence of the outcry, which he says came from less than 1% of the user base. “I think it’s going in the right direction now,” he says less than a month after the Facebook upgrade. “We’re trying to do what the users want, because they are king.” For example, the Facebook app reinstated the original more cartoonish Pokey virtual pet for those users who wanted him.

Right now, FooMojo has two strategic aims for its virtual pets: to make them more portable and to design a full-fledged virtual space so that owners and their pets can meet up and interact with others. The iPhone app is a start toward letting FooPet owners carry their animals with the everywhere, and that will continue. The virtual FooPet world is further out but still in the cards at the right development point, Hornbaker says.

In the short term, though, FooMojo has two smaller tasks: to keep up with the demand for animated versions of the 250-some dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club; and coming to a final decision on the poop-scooping question.

“We know some people like the convenience, ease and lack of mess in owning a virtual pet, while others get into the high-maintenance experience, even when that means picking up poop,” Hornbaker says. “We haven’t decided if we’re going to go that far into realism, but we do have people asking for it.”