Dabble, a neat-o website that lets you easily bookmark and view videos from anywhere on the internet has just kicked off the 24-hour Dogster & Catster video playlist challenge. To enter, make an account on Dabble and make a playlist of your favorite dog and cat videos. Tag your playlist “Dabble Challenge 2006″
and “Dogster Contest”. (More directions are here.)

You can add videos to your account (so you can add to a playlist) from Dogster Video, Catster Video, any video anywhere on the web or from their existing archive of video.

Here’s Dogster’s playlist. (While you’re there add Dogster as a friend once you’ve made your account.) You can grab their bookmarklet to easy add video to your profile, and here’s their playlist tutorial.

The creator of the playlist that gets the most favorites by noon the following day gets a Dogster and a Dabble T-Shirt - and guarantees themselves a spot in the final competition!

     

Mashable, a site dedicated to online communities has nominated both Dogster & Catster for a Social Networking award in ‘Niche Networks.’ We prefer the term ‘Passion-centric communities’ but it’s the same thing.

If you have a moment please go to the contest leave a comment that says either ‘Vote Dogster’ or ‘Vote Catster’.

Thanks so much, it means a lot to us

It is not a sequel to the Da Vinci Code. It is the Impact Horizon – something we have been thinking about a lot at Dogster and can be a useful tool in your decision making progress.

In the early days of Dogster, it was just Ted, Steven and I. We would sit at Ted’s dining room table, write code, answer the phone, have meetings, and lunch at Klein’s. Things were simple and we would work on whatever needed attention or whatever new feature we thought the users would love. We tried making a few long term plans but they were always based on flawed assumptions and became obsolete very fast. In revisiting our past, I realize that our most successful choices in our product and business strategy were the ones that had a profound impact in the short term. Our worst choices seem to have been the ones that we thought would pay off “down the road.”

In our first year, our best decisions were the ones that made a real impact within a few weeks. I would also take that a step further: Our best decisions were made with a vision of the future that was only a few weeks out. Whether it was a new feature, capacity planning, hiring decisions or what have you, having a short-term vision kept us focused yet nimble. Whenever we tried to see beyond this horizon, we were usually wrong and wasting precious time. Hopefully someone has already thought of a better term for this (if you know, please tell me), but for now I am calling it the “Impact Horizon.”

As we moved into the second year our impact horizon grew to about 2 months. We were now a company of three salaried founders with a little seed money, a lease on office space, real revenue and a lot of super-passionate users that we were learning a lot about. We took on some projects that were a little larger and that would not make an impact for 1 or 2 months. Those projects that came to fruition within this horizon worked great. A few times, however, we got too ambitious. I can think of one project in particular where we tried to develop a project with a much greater scope. We even hired a contractor to do it. It took a lot of time and money to develop. Today, it is not even in production.

In the third year, we started hiring full-time employees. By this time we were starting to understand the impact horizon and we made a conscious decision not to fill any position that would not be impactful within 2-3 months. Our first two hires were a Director of Sales and a Director of Systems. Two positions that had a huge impact but it did take a couple of months to really see the difference in the books or in the user experience.

Now as we are about to start our fourth year we have a seriously large community, 14 full-time employees, our third office, awesome advertisers and partners, and some very excellent angel investors. We know a lot about our members and hopefully a lot about communities and running a growing business. Our impact horizon is now at about 6 months. We have started marketing programs that we know will take a few months to figure out and tune. We are adding capacity now for traffic we don’t expect until next summer. Our product development team is now working on cool new projects with longer development lifecycles. I am confident that we can make very good decisions within an impact horizon of 6 months. We still make 1 year and 2 year plans that we feel good about and are useful in their own ways, but in terms of allocating real resources and spending cash, I prefer to work within the impact horizon.

I would love to hear any feedback or similar experience.

Bookmark on del.icio.us, or digg it!

Mashable, the social networking blog described Dogster as ‘the first site you think of when people say “niche network”‘. We’re honored.

Of course we’re hopeful that Catster is the second site everyone thinks of.

Mashable has launched a first-ever Social Network awards competition and I would like to formally nominate both Dogster and Catster for consideration in the Niche Networks category.

For any judges reviewing what we’ve done, I’d like to point out the we have custom-built our video, forums, groups, events, diaries, classifieds, private messaging so they could reflect our members passion most completely.

For the holidays alone we added three virtual gifts (, , ) and our Dogster Holiday Photos Stroll and Catster Holiday Photo Stroll full of member-submitted holiday themed photos has been more popular than our homepage this month!

Win, lose or paw, I’d just like to saw that none of this could have ever happened without our wonderful members whose joy and sincerity motivate us every day to make wonderful things for them. Three cheers for social petworking!

I just returned from Loïc Le Meur’s Le Web 3 conference in Paris which is a European equivalent of our own Web 2.0. Attending the conference were entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, tech experts, academics and, oddly enough, politicians.

Two speakers were extremely powerful: Hans Rosling, a Swedish professor who discussed the “myths of the developing world” and Shimon Peres, former Prime Minister of Israel and Nobel Peace Prize winner (wow!). While neither of these two speakers had a particular web or tech angle to their appearances, a context was set for the conference. Internet technology, blogs, online communities and mobile technology have a global impact and that those of us involved in this “revolution” must be very aware of this. These technologies can be used to improve the quality of life worldwide. Africa and “low-income countries” were mentioned often. I would recommend checking out Professor Roslings work and/or viewing some of the video from the conference. This was some pretty heavy stuff and really drove home to me that this was an international conference – much different than ones I have been to on this side of the pond.

Two French presidential candidates also decided to make a last minute appearance at the conference. Poll leader Nicolas Sarkozy and underdog François Bayrou briefly spoke on Tuesday. Being somewhat of a francophile I was interested in seeing these two leaders speak but it was obvious that most of the conference attendees were not very interested. I don’t think the politicians were particularly interested in attendees either as they spoke in French (it was an English conference, remember 36 countries represented) and didn’t interact much at all with the audience. It was politics and unfortunately for a lot of people, not very relevant or even acceptable.

There were many other speakers and panels worth mentioning. Dannah Boyd is always spot-on when she presents. She did a very informative talk on younger web 2.0 users. Dogster investor Jeff Clavier led an interesting panel on whether or not there is another bubble. The panel included Dogster friend David Hornik (August), Techcrunch’s Ouriel Ohayon and VC super star Danny Rimer. Other names that stand out from the whirlwind two days are Marko Ahtisaari, Jonas Luster, Ewan Spence, Scott Rafer, Yossi Vardi, Tariq Krim, Reid Hoffman, and Gil Penchina. I wish I had more time to write in detail about the different subjects and the inspiration borne from them, but with a full email inbox, an office move today, our holiday party and jet lag - that will have to wait.

A special thanks to Marc Goldberg, Jeff Clavier and Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda Schulz for hosting a wonderful meet-up dinner Tuesday night.

UPDATE Dec. 18: There has been a lot of harsh criticism and also support in the past week since the event. And, after more reflection on the event, I would like to add my voice to the supporters. The internet isn’t just a bunch of geeks sitting around discussing ajax, blogs and RSS feeds. Politics, peace and world development are now relevant to this discussion. The world is changing and the web is part of what is changing it. Loic took a risk changing the schedule to get in these incredible speakers and I am glad he did. It was an amazing conference. As someone else said, Peres and Rosling were worth the trip in and of themselves. Yes, it was chaotic and some of the panels were stale topics but, I give the overall experience a big thumbs up.

Here are a few others who say it better than me: Rodrigo, Dannah, Jeff and the man himself, Loic.

It’s a paw-some time of year and if you’re looking for ideas on what exactly to give your beloved pet or pet-loving friend, you’ve barked up (or clawed up) the right tree. We surveyed over 1,200 Dogster and Catster members and found out the most snifftastic, meaningful, pawtastic gifts discerning canines and felines and the bipeds that love them want.

It’s all about accessorizing. So when it comes to buying collars, don’t go boring. Go bling. Studded, jeweled and glitter lined varieties are all the rage this season. And don’t forget to pick up a matching lead or harness.

Ever wonder how your dog sees the world? Wonder no more! “Fun with your dog” is a new science kit that lets you dawn glasses that show you how pup experiences color. You can also compare their sense of smell and give ‘em a personality quiz to see how well you really know your four-legged companion.

Ditch those boring tennis balls when playing fetch. Go big . Go Kong Balls –They come in all shapes and sizes. And is the one gift that no fetch-loving pup can stand to be without.

Forget your basic catnip scented cat-n-mouse games. This holiday, go wild with remote control mice that your cat will never grow tired of. Or, pick them up some sushi-shaped toys. Ha! Raw fish indeed!

Looking cool while staying warm. Sweaters, vests and ponchos are what the well-heeled walker will be taking to the streets in. Faux leopard skin and pink velvet are what all the vogue-reading dogs are yelping for. And don’t forget matching umbrellas and bags for humans.

 
We also asked your sure-footed friends what they’re hoping to wake up and sniff out in their stockings:

It’s time to give litter boxes a fresher image. Check out litter boxes that also double as plant holders. Real ceramic and clay pots make this litter box the perfect fit in to any room. Or go hi-tech and get the automatic, self-cleaning litter box.

It’s easy to say cool with the motion-sensor dog fountain. Attach it to any spigot and your pooch will have a fresh stream of cool water with the wag of a tail or a touch of a paw.

Give your pet more living space with dual-level cat and small-dog houses. These solid wood framed homes provide privacy as well as a place for your pet to get out in the sun. Purr-fect for indoor and outdoor use.

Think your pup has an ear for music. Then check out this CD loaded with cool canine tunes. Tested on doggy focus groups, and featured on NPR, this CD can help calm your pet when you’re away or reinforce a positive behavior.

Purr-fect that catnap with the “Hammocat” - the feline designed hammock. Or let Martha Stewart show you how to make your own. Curious kitties may prefer a window napper.

 
And most lovingly, here’s how you and yours would be spending time during the holidays:

Unwrapping gifts and playing in the discarded wrapping paper

Trying to keep the cat from climbing the tree

Brings toys and treats to local shelters

Getting photos taken with Santa Paws! Holiday photos rule!

Making homemade dog biscuits.

 
Happy Howlidays and a Scratchy New Year from your pals at Dogster and Catster.


 

Digg the entry!

ABC 10 Sacramento did a nice review of our services, that aired tonight on News 10. Watch it for yourself.

I like how immediately after the program aired they posted to their website a paragraph-based write-up as well as a complete clip of the video.

Around here we are huge fans of web developers turning their passions into their income. Pixelgirl Presents and Pixelgirl Shop, made by Shana Victor of Morfia Design appears to be doing just that. Morfia is a custom graphic and design shop specializing in logo/branding, iconography, OS icons, flash, etc.

Pixelgirl Presents allows anyone to upload icon sets they designed and anyone else to download them. There are also articles and tutorials and in the end there is a solid community feel of iconographers meeting and sharing with other iconographers. It’s for icons what Chank used to be for fonts. If Alexa is to be trusted Pixelgirl has a 21,000 ranking which is no small feat.

After the surprising growth in Pixelgirl usage and meeting so many artists and DIYers Shana started PixelgirlShop an impressive online store of modern crafts and popular items. Most items are consignment based direct from artists. Nothing is mass produced.

Between adsense ads and donations on PixelgirlPresents, Percentages from PixelgirlShop and custom development for what I would imagine would be an ever growing list of clients for Morfia Design I have to imagine Shana Victor has made herself a self-sustaining business with lots of opportunity for expansion and growth in the directions she prefers.

We really like that around here. Go Pixelgirl!

We used to rely on our web stats and a ‘How did you hear about us’ field to understand how many people we’re clicking into our sites from where. If this sounds like you, do what we should have done years ago and add some simple referer tracking knowledge.

Here’s some of the really simply code I wrote in php to do so.

Step 1: Create a database table to store each time a visitor arrived at your site from another site

CREATE TABLE `table_name` (
  `date` datetime NOT NULL,
  `fqdn` varchar(127) NOT NULL,   #fqdn=fully qualified domain name
  `adn` varchar(127) NOT NULL,    #adn=absolute domain name
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

Step 2: Identify when a visitor has just arrived from an external domain. This code should be run on every page. When it finds a visitor has just come from another domain, we set two cookies. One so we can stop checking them and a second that lasts for 30 days that we’ll refer to when they register.

if (empty($_COOKIE['ref_id'])) {      //this cookie set below.
  $referer = parse_url($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);
  $host = $referer['host']; //extract the FQDN (www.example.com)
  $domain_parts = explode(’.',$host); //break it into pieces
  //if it starts with www remove the ‘www’ piece
  if ($domain_parts[0]==’www’ && count($domain_parts)>2) {
    array_shift($domain_parts);
  }
  $domain = implode(”.”, $domain_parts); //glue it back together
  if ($domain && !strstr($domain,’dogster.com’)
           && !strstr($domain,’catster.com’)) {
    $insert=”INSERT INTO table_name (date,fqdn,adn)
                 VALUES(NOW(),’$host’,'$domain’)”;
    $result=mysql_query($insert, $dbcon);
    //set session cookie
    setcookie(”ref_id”, $referer_site_id);
    //set 30 day cookie
    setcookie(”ref_domain”, $domain, time()+2592000);
  }
}

Step 3: Make a database table that simply stores unique domains. Ours is in MySQL

CREATE TABLE `table_name_2` (
  `refering_domain_id` mediumint(6) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `absolute_domain` varchar(30) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (`refering_domain_id`)
)  ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8  

Step 4: Whenever a new member registers, look for the 30 day cookie (’ref_domain’). If the cookie exists, see if that domain already exists in table_name_2. If yes, proceed, if not, add it.

Step 5: Create a database table that stores a row for each registrant that came to your domain from a referring domain. We also use this table to store an optional refering campaign so we categorize registrations if they were part of a particular promotion, ad campaign, event, etc.

CREATE TABLE `table_name_3` (
  `user_id` int(8) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
  `refering_domain_id` mediumint(6) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
  `refering_campaign` varchar(20) NOT NULL default '',
  UNIQUE KEY `user_id` (`user_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

Step 6: Add the newly joined referred registrants info to a row in ‘table_name_3′

Step 7: Start cranking out views and reports. We look at how many members joined from each domain over a period of time. Then it becomes endless. How many pet profiles did they add. How many friends did they make, forum postings, treats given, messages written. It then becomes quite obvious the quality of the referring domain to go along with the quantity which we roughly knew from our weblogs.

A required task that you can do at any point in the process is aggregate like domains, extract insignificant ones. You may find stripping off subdomains and working with the absolute domains helpful. us.f340.mail.yahoo.com, us.f608.mail.yahoo.com, us.f806.mail.yahoo.com, us.f816.mail.yahoo.com and us.f827.mail.yahoo.com can all be treated as mail.yahoo.com. Or you may want to ignore top-level domains. For example we are interested keeping www.google.com and image.google.com separate, but google.com.qa, google.gr, google.com.ph, google.co.nz, google.fi, google.pt are all treated as google.other to us for now.

For dog’s sake, it’s never too soon to know where your best members are coming from, and seeing over time how they are using your service.

Upon Dogster’s launch I was hardly concerned about search engine optimization (SEO). Dogster would be a site that people wanted and found or had no idea existed at all. OMD how things have changed.

Fortunately, we’ve had the excellent help of SEO firm and Web2.0 start-up ACS-SEO. You may know them of the extremely informative CrazyEgg and the to-be-live Serph and SiteBlimp web services. The fact they are trying to promote their own properties on their budgets ensured they would care about SEO the same way we do.

At our size now, SEO benefits are so clear. Every day on average 55 new members register after finding us in a Google search, 15 from Yahoo! Since 1 in 4 members that joins our sites become a lifer no matter where they arrive from, the more registrants each day, the more people that have found their online home.

The URL project has been a bear. Here is an example of a URL change for a forum Main Topic

old: www.dogster.com/forums/main_topic.php?t=5012
new: www.dogster.com/forums/Behavior_and_Training

The big trick is that the old URL has do redirect to the new one and also send a 301 ‘Permanent Redirect’ header message. Google penalizes a page rank if there are two distinct URLs pointing to the same exact content. So the actual change has to happen at once.

One annoying problem was trying to handle the URL redirect and the 301 redirect using only mod_rewite rules in our .htacess file . The problem is you have an circular situation. The rule to match the old URL redirects to the new URL which redirects back to the original URL (invisibly to the user) which then was activating the first rule again.

The solution was to put the 301 ‘Permanent Redirect’ header response atop the original php file to the new directory-style URL. The mod-rewrite rule catches the new request and but invisibly redirects to a near-identical php file with a different name. I’m sure there’s prettier, but it does the trick.

Here are some more examples of converted URLs.

A member’s diary URL is now longer buy has more many more keywords.

old: dogster.com/diary_entry.php?pet_id=312492
new: dogster.com/dogs/312492/diary/One_day_the_world_shall_be_mine

A Catster subscriber’s photobook:

old: www.catster.com/photos/?i=397668
new: www.catster.com/cats/397668/photos

Though not live, we’re on the verge of changing pet pages:

old: www.catster.com/pet_page.php?i=397668
new: www.catster.com/cats/397668

(We would have preferred to use the pet’s name as the unique identifier, but it’s far too late to enforce a unique pet name or unique username policy now)

It’s too soon to say the exact benefit of these (and many many other SEO-related changes we’ve made) but here are some results from Google today for Dogster against the following phrases:

• ‘dog diaries’ - 1st
• ‘dog profile’ - 2nd
• ‘dog site’ - 2nd
• ‘dog photos’ - 3rd
• ‘dog photo’ - 4th
• ‘dog picture’ - 5th

We didn’t even break the top ten on any of these before we began this effort.