Mathbabe nailed a couple of key points on what people use to steer toward a career... knowledge the career exists, and belief they would be good at it. Most youth view their options in life based on what they see in their immediate social sphere. Having parents as mathemetician lets you know it's possible and probably also contributes to the belief that you could be good at it.
If we want more women programmers/mathemeticians/etc, we need to show female examples earlier on to let girls know it is possible and weed out the fools in the education system who espouse girl brains don't work as analytically as boy brains. I bet a lot of girls don't go to mathcamp not because they think it's "uncool" but because they either don't know it exists or don't think they would be good enough.
User ratings, if done correctly, will make the site "sticky", so if they build their user base fast enough, they could have a first mover advantage. Even so, social networks supposedly have a first mover advantage and even those die off as improved user experiences are presented. It sounds like several of these dog sites have launched in the past few months, and the winner will be the one that makes the best user experience while building volume of users with polished profiles and ratings that seem real and credible.
I love this idea. Yet, if I were the founders, this is the issue that would keep me up in the night, not just for what could happen to the pets, but for what could happen if a dog bites a child. I don't think the site is for every pet owner, but with a $4 billion US market in pet services and plenty of pet owners who hate kennels, I think there is sufficient demand to make this a success. It will be interesting to see how they offset the risks.
I agree this is a risk in the business model. However, given how annoying it can be to coordinate schedules, an online scheduling feature could be useful enough to bring them back to the site. (And if your preferred sitter isn't available... you'd need the site for a new one.) I guess it depends on the extra perks of the site vs the cost of use ie. the percentage of revenue Rover keeps for themselves. I'd pay $2 just to avoid a chain of emails asking what day/time works best for any calendar event.
If we want more women programmers/mathemeticians/etc, we need to show female examples earlier on to let girls know it is possible and weed out the fools in the education system who espouse girl brains don't work as analytically as boy brains. I bet a lot of girls don't go to mathcamp not because they think it's "uncool" but because they either don't know it exists or don't think they would be good enough.