I saw a post on Sneakerplay today while reading one of the Web 2.0 group hug sites, and as I typically do when reading such sites, promptly spat my coffee all over my screen (although to Pete’s credit, he ends with: Bottom line: very limited right now, but might have potential).  For a bit I thought the whole site was created by someone like me, really as a spoof of the swampy wasteland we call social networking.

Sneakerplay is an innovative social network designed specifically for the global sneaker culture.

That’s their tagline. 

And it’s real.

And kudos to the Vancouver Sun for originally breaking the story.

Now, I haven’t had a chance to use the site yet (but I did read their blog).  You see, I am unfortunately wearing dress shoes right now, and they require you to send in a picture (well, not send, actually you are required to use zooomr to do it) of your shoes in order to get into the private beta test.  Good technology there too, since I just used google photos (thanks, Loic!)to find a picture of some old converse all-stars, but they somehow detected that. 

So I can’t really get all, you know, “down and dirty” with the actual site.  Hopefully they’ll get a chance to spin off some other sites, like Sandalsplay, and Stilettosplay, and even CuteFuzzyTeddyBearSlippersplay, because I think this thing is gonna be huge man.  But then we’ll see the inevitable competition.  MySneakerSpace.com is already reserved, and you know SneakerSter is coming too.  Then it’ll just get ugly.  SneakerPlay won’t make their system available to an external API, and when SnkrR.com’s mashup stops working, it’ll quickly get ShoeDugg.  You’ll hear all about it on FootVlog.

But all in all, I’m sure the online shoe community networking space is just at the tip of the iceberg. I’ve even heard the VC’s are already predicting SneakerBook to go for about $800 million or so (which is way underpriced and they should turn it down and wait for something even higher to come along).