You think dogs and cats can’t Arrrrgh with the beast of them? (bad pun intended)

Pirate Day is going off on Dogster and Catster.

Check out new dog photos and cat photos tagged “pirate.” I wish I could show you to the massive thread on Pirate Day on Dogster, but it’s in the subscriber area. Plus people can see it though ;>

Here are some more exmaples!

Today our long time friend and adviser Jeff Clavier announced his big news that he has opened a $12 million early stage venture fund, SoftTech VC II. Jeff, along with Ron Conway,Josh Kopleman, Fred Wilson and Brad Feld are going to go down as the first investors ready to meet the demand of the entrepreneurs of the 00’s. Hype-speakers would say “the people that fueled Web2.0.”

Historically early stage investors were friends, family, visa cards, and Angel Investors. All great things to have, but few of which can give the guidance and contacts institutional investors can offer. Jeff will be known as one of the first to fill the gap of providing not just money, but the ever elusive smart money, which has been so hard for rational entrepreneurs to partner up with.

He intends to invest in 30 to 40 companies over the next three years. A decade ago $12M would hardly be enough to invest in three companies, and even today, aside from the names mentioned above, it’s a heck of a lot easier to raise $3M from smart money than it is $500k, even though very few early stage these companies need even $1M.

So congrats to Jeff, keep up the good work.

Photo by Scott Beale

We’re up to 15 full-time and 2 part-time employees.

Dogster, Inc. is now a company full of vibrant, brilliant people whose collective production goes far beyond what 17 people should normally be able to do. So here’s to them!

Top: Yuko, Jesse, Barce, Leef, Craig, Greg, Laurie
Middle: Paul, John, Ted, Steven, Russell, Angela
Front: Ellen, Patty
(Employees not pictured: Lori, Ellen G, John W)
Doggies! Anoki, Logan, Moxie, Rummel, Sherpa, Marcel, Sheba

If you use Google Analytics (which I’m just going to type Googlytics) and are not using Filters, you’ll want to learn how to use them. They are extremely powerful and precise arrows you’ll want at the ready, your decision quiver.

I found them because it was becoming very important to know web stat data such as uniques, pages per visit, search engine referrals, bounce rates, etc. for subsections of our sites, such as the homepages, forums, local listings, videos and groups. Now that I have filters in place for each of these, we can now see, slice and dice the entire realm of Googlytic data for each of these areas just as you can for the whole domain.

Googlytics filters can be used either to exclude or include relevant data. If I want to see Dogster usage data for visitors that come from search engines vs. referred links I can. If I want to know usage data for people not using javascript vs. those that are, I can. You can even use multiple filters in a compound manner. If I wanted to see usage data on people directly referred to this entry (but not from search engines), that did not come from digg.com, and compare those to the people that came from digg, that were already using Flash9 but over dial-up connections, I’d be a crazy person—but I could. (Note filters only work on new data, not historical, so there is no retroactive data mining.)

For the purpose of this intro I’m just going to show you how to make simple filters, to show subsets of data you can compare to your main domain or other filtered date. With these you’ll pretty much be able to isolate any standard or custom web log values such as referrer data or type, URL strings, browser setting, page title, ISP, AdWords campaign, operating system, connection speed, etc., etc., etc.; these can all be isolated as you wish. Heck, they even support RegExp for complicated filtering.

The best way to make a new filter is to:

• » Analytics Settings -> Filter Manager (found in the bottom right) -> and then name and create your new filter. Repeat for as many filters as you want to have.
• » Before applying a filter to a profile, you want to duplicate the profile by going to Analytics Settings -> Add Website Profile -> then select “Add a Profile for an existing domain,” select domain, then give a unique name to the duplicate profile. Repeat for as many filters as you want to run against a domain. (Reminder, if you run multiple filters on a profile they will act in compound. You need a different duplicate profile for each filter set you want.)
• » Before you can use this new profile you will need to have Googlytics confirm it’s real (just click the link that says ‘Check Status’) by confirming the same way you did the original domain.
• » Finally, associate a filter to the duplicate profile by going to Analytics Settings -> Edit the new profile -> Add Filter -> then select “Apply existing Filter to Profile,” and pick the filter from the list.
• » From this point forward you can see the entire stat data for each profile.

TAKE HEED: A very easy mistake to make (I’m looking at you Googlytic filter documentation) is applying a filter against a primary profile. Doing so will limit your primary web stats to just filter matches. Unmatched data during that time period will be lost forever. So only run filters for your primary profile unless you really want your core stats modified (such as excluding traffic from your office, but even that I’d prefer to have as a secondary profile just to see the original vs. the non-office.)

And a reminder, filters only work on data that occurs after they are put in place. They cannot be used to crunch historical usage.

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The newest wave in social engineering is auto-spamming all your contacts. This is when websites display text that vaguely say “Invite your friends to join this site too.” The normal practice is you enter your username and password for your webmail client and are shown all your contacts and you can choose which you think would also be interested in the site. The normal practice is a nice and helpful feature to reach out to your subset of contacts quickly.

The new nefarious and unethical tactic is upon entering your username and password every contact is immediately sent a welcome email. I’m looking at you Shelfari and Quechup when I type this. I’m also looking at every CEO, BizDev and Marketeer so desperate to show increased usage numbers that they think it’s okay to be unethical to achieve their financial dream of their start-up becoming a success.

I’m not one to share my webmail info with sites I’m new to, but in the last week I’ve gotten too many of these emails. Heck a coworker had a “sitedown” email contact which redirects to our pagers which made us think there was a site issue at midnight only to read some slimy Shelfari marketing blather. Two years ago Plaxo tried this and was resoundingly thumped in the blogosphere.

It’s rare I take the time to point out faults in the industry. But today I’m going to chastise my peers because these acts of desperation are unethical, questionably illegal (this is duping people to route spam) embarrassing to the innocent user and annoying to the unwanting recipient.

Figure out how to grow your userbase ethically or have blog entries like this show up in search results for your company names. Don’t believe me? Here are Google searches on your names: Quechup and Shelfari has been around a while, but there’s already a spam story in the top ten.

Not a week goes by that I don’t read an email from a member that I want to post here. Getting astounding emailings was the first clue I had in January 2004 that Dogster (and then Catster) were going to be far bigger then anyone could imagine.

Last night I read one I just had to post because it hits on almost everything we work so hard to manifest.

Dear Dogster,

Just wanted to thank you once again for the way you uplift and enrich the lives of the Dogster/Catster members. When you teamed with the folks at Shutterfly, I had never heard of them or had any idea there was something as wonderful as a “Photo Book” like the one we could create for our family pet.

What I think needs to be said is the manner in which Dogster goes to the plate for it’s members when there is a problem they can’t solution or work through. Don’t know what I’ve have done without you! Talk about some place where we can not only be ourselves (even when that means admitting our shortcomings with the computer to know less than most pre-schoolers on this machine) but will be walked through to somehow create something really wonderful on it.

Thank you Dogster for doing what you do so well—giving us opportunities to make the most beautiful memories our family will enjoy for years to come. Thank you Dogster for your effort and support in finding partners who are as much like Dogster as possible to go that extra too.

Thank you Dogster for everything you do to give us all a place where we can relax, enjoy the company of other pets/family, educate ourselves, check on a new store/food/vet/groomer, etc before we make the mistake of believing what we hear w/o references from others. There is no place I’ve rather be than Dogster where the best is always yet to come, again and again and again and again!

In closing, I’ve been able to share our “Memory Book of Cooper” with our Vet and their entire staff, friends, neighbors, our Library staff, and some teachers who all knew and loved Cooper too. They were surprised to hear about all the “other” things they can and will find at “dogster.com” ….. not everyone knows there is a place for we pet owners to bring our pets and brag without complaint from anyone :) We are confident there will be some happy new Dogster Members who we hope will tell you, “Cooper sent me.”

Thank you again from everyone who now knows Cooper’s Memory Book was possible because Dogster cares and picks the beat partners to benefit us all.

Sincerely,
Elaine Gorea and family
and everyone who knew/loved Cooper too.

Thank you Elaine. This is exactly why we do what we do.

Whoopi Goldberg today defended Michael Vick and dog fighting as a harmless Southern pastime. Please don’t make me state some other Southern pastimes that were once also considered harmless.

Our Dog Blogger, Joy Ward opens a serious can of whoopi ass on Whoopi which should get linked to far and wide.

Dogfighting belongs to useless, cruel people across the US and Canada. Southerners don’t own stupidity or evil behavior. Sure, there are many of these pieces of poop masquerading as humans in the South but I would bet you, Whoopi, that you have some of them living near you too. They are just as much your neighbors as they have been mine.

Whoopi, you gotta stop getting goofed up on Hollywood pills and get back to your roots.

Read the whole entry now.