I love to see things go viral. I also love when those viral things have to do with pet adoption. A couple of weeks ago a new video came out on YouTube from the Nevada Humane Society. I was not the first to see it. I don’t usually make my way to YouTube unless I’m looking for something specific. Things like ways to train your dog or a new cat breed. When I saw the video on facebook I knew that it was going to take off. I was the 437th person to view it. Since then it’s had over 58,000 views. Sweet!

What I really like about the video is that it’s fun. Sure, it’s a spoof on the wedding video dance. That just makes it familiar. It shows that shelters are a fun place to be. They’re not the sad places that have animals stuck behind cages, waiting to die. Adopting is a fun experience that people look forward to.

The honest truth is that I’ve been to very few shelters in my life. Most of the cats and dogs that I’ve had the pleasure to live with are animals that we’ve found. It’s not that shelters are a bad place, it’s just that I’ve always found them sad. I always felt that I would feel so sorry for the animals that going there would just break my heart.

One of the most important aspects of this video is how it takes the stigma off shelters and shelter pets. It’s true that these animals may not start out lucky, but there’s nothing wrong with them. They just need love and compassion.

I feel that in looking for a way to raise money, a lot of shelters have played the pity card. It might work to raise money, but there are potential risks with making these pets seem undesirable.

And that’s one of the reasons that I really, really love this video. If I could, I would go to Nevada and check it out. They make adoption fun. How much more desirable can you make a dog than precede his adoption with all that pomp and circumstance?

I straddle two worlds. I play with The Pet Wiki in my world of pet friends and play in the world of SEO and social media for my professional life. I think that I have a unique perspective on both sides of the coin.

I have been a follower of @sockington since the first #pawpawty (see post) that I went to. That was in the beginning of April. I had no idea that he was such an influential cat at the time. He was one of the lives of the pawty. If I would have guessed which cat would have become a celebrity of this magnitude, I would have gone with @RomeoTheCat. Romeo is a cat that was rescued from The Forgotten Persian Rescue and Friends, and has now devoted his life to help raise money for other rescue organizations.

I digress. The point is that I (probably like most of his followers) followed him to be part of a cool crowd. Sockington is cool. He is not a cat that follows back. That means, that I read his tweets, but he doesn’t read mine (except from TweetGrid during the #pawpawty). As a matter of fact, he is currently following fewer than 400 people (actually, pets) so I don’t really feel left out. He is a selective follower. So am I.

I have no idea how he got so many people to follow him. I’m not sure that he does either. I’ve read his blog, and he’s just as surprised as anyone to have this level of twitter fame.

Why does it bother TechCruch so much? Robin Wauters, of TechCruch recently wrote an article This Is Getting Ridiculous: Cat Amasses Half A Million Twitter Followers In 3 Months. It’s not ridiculous. People are enjoying what the kitty has to say so much, that they are buying t-shirts with his tweets. I think that people are just jealous.

Is there a magic formula for getting followers? If anything, I think that Sockington proves not. He’s just this cat, you know.

I am really starting to become a twitter power users. The Pet Wiki is just shy of 150 followers. It’s really a lot of fun. Although it’s giving a name to The Pet Wiki, I haven’t figured out how to convert it to more page views. It’s true that the number of page views are up, but I was hoping it would have a greater impression than that. I’ll keep tweeting, and we’ll see where it goes. Either way, it’s a lot of fun.

I finally put the cat show pictures up. They look really good. There really isn’t anything like being there, but this does come close.

My mom has started o slow down on the number of entries that she is writing. She is concerned that she is going to run out of things to write. I’m less concerned. I told her not to worry, if she can’t think of anything, I can be a pest and make things up for her. There’s always fish .

Things are going pretty smoothly. There is a three session seminar that on social media that I am thinking about signing up for. I think that I know most of the stuff that is going to be covered in the 1st 2 sessions. but it will be good to have a refresher course. The last one talks about facebook apps and things that I haven’t started contemplating yet. It should be interesting.

After an exhausting week in NY, I am finally back home. It took me a couple of days, but I’m all caught up with all the entries that my mother created on The Pet Wiki. New Entries include:

• Beagle Harrier
• Boulet
• Billy
• American Eskimo Dog
• Fila Brasileiro
•  Greenland
• Rafeiro do Alentejo‎
• Porcelaine
• Restreador Brasileiro‎
• Australian Mist
• Sanshu
• Telomain
• Finnish Lapphund
• Picardy Spaniel
• Mudi
• Kurile Island Bobtail

This is a dispoportionate number of dogs to cats. Only the Australian Mist and Kurile Island Bobtail are cats, the rest are dogs. I wonder why there are so many more dog breeds than cat breeds. As modern life changes the way we do things, and more people move into the urban centers, cats will probably start to take over as most popular pet. I don’t know this for a fact, but it just seems like a natural progression.

Last week was the cat show. It was a lot of fun. I want to add a page on The Pet Wiki with a summary of what I learned, and pictures that I took at the show. Now that I’m caught up with what I needed to get done for my mom, it’s the next thing on my list. I hope to get to it tomorrow.

I’ll be going to the Crab and Mallet Cat Show this weekend in Baltimore. I’ve never been to a cat show before and I’m really looking forward to it. As I’ve blogged about before, there are a ton of breeds that I don’t have pictures for on The Pet Wiki. I hope to be able to get some while I’m there. I really don’t know what to expect. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Twitter seems to be doing its magic. There are now of 50 followers of the The Pet Wiki’s twitter page. I knew that twitter was viral, but I had no idea how much having a twitter account would add. Now we just have to figure out how to followers of twitter to become contributors to wiki.

I’ve been looking all over the web for animal pictures that I can legally use on The Pet Wiki. Most of the images that I need are in the Creative Commons or Wikipedia. I’ve been a good web citizen, and I’ve been putting in all the correct copyright information. With all the images out there, I still can’t find any images for the following pages:

• Treeing Tennessee Brindle
• American Wirehair
• Cymric
• Norwegian Forest Cat
• Peke-Faced Persian
• Tiffany/Chantilly

If anyone has a picture of any of these pets, I’d really appreciate if they can let me use them. The pages just don’t look right without the pictures. It’s great to describe what they look like, but it’s a whole other experience when you can see what is being talked about.

I’m trying to learn what I can about creating a community. New twitter friends are still coming on line. We now have 20 followers. I find that pretty cool. I am trying to tweet 1-2 times a day. I find that people who do more than that can really drive me crazy. I keep posting links of thing that change or are added. Luckily, I have a lot to tweet about.

I’ve join the community for CatChannel.com. Actually, my daughter’s cat Omer has joined the community. It’s pet focused, not owner focused. It’s really cute that way. If you come to Omer’s page, please vote for him. I’m not sure what you get for the votes, but maybe Omer will be able to get a free trip to Disneyland. Maybe not.

I have a bit of experience with communities, and I’m hoping that this will add to my knowledge about pet communities. There are a lot of nice things about the site, but there are a lot of things lacking. From a user standpoint, I don’t think that I should need to edit my profile on a separate page. I should be able to do it while I’m on my page. I guess that I’ve gotten spoiled by using Facebook. It’s such a great interface, that I just expect every site to be like them.

Four strangers have wrote on my blog (it would be called my wall in Facebook.) I don’t quite know why they call it a blog. When I found out that a blog was connected to the site, I looked for a way to add information. Although I can post anything that I like, so can someone else. The comments that people make are also blog entries.

I don’t know if there is anything that I can take away from this for The Pet Wiki, but I’m having fun hanging out and looking at all the cute kitties. Maybe I’ll make some friends while I’m at it. There are message boards that I’d like to start writing on. That will be my next project.

Things have been so crazy lately, that I haven’t a any time to update the blog. So much is going on. I created a twitter account for The Pet Wiki. I don’t know how, but people are finding it and are starting to follow. So far there are 9 people following. That’s not too shabby for only 3 days. I don’t know how people are finding it, but it seems to be working. Too cool!

We have another person that has started writing for the wiki. Pet Girl has added a page for Aegean cats and Calico Cats. I hope that they are the first of many.

My mom has started writing pages for dog and cat products. It’s a bit sparse, but I’m sure it will fill up.

I haven’t had any time to pay any attention to The Met Wiki. The truth of the matter is that I like pets better than Mets. My son is still adding content and some of his friends from the Bleacher Report have started lending a hand. Spring training just started. I have a feeling that when the season really kicks in that more people will want to contribute. Not me, but I’ve heard that there are fans out there

All in all, it’s been a pretty exciting week. I hope to have more to report soon. The process is slow, but the progress is good. We’ll get there yet!

No, my mother has not finished adding dogs. She keeps finding more. She’s even added designer dog breeds like Bogles and Giant Schnoodles. She needs a break from from dogs, so she’s now decided to add horses to The Pet Wiki. There seems to be a lot out there. So far she’s added the following four breeds:

• American Paint Horse
• Appaloosa
• Icelandic Horse
• Paso Fino

This is a break from what she has been doing. Until now all the animals have been house pets. There are plenty of horses to write about, so I’m sure that she won’t run out. I wonder if she will start adding other farm animals as well.

My mom has really been at it. She has writen all the base content for The Pet Wiki. If you want to know anything about a Talking Mynah, or a Ferret or a Kingsnake, her site is the place to go.

What’s up next? She has started writing pages for dog pet care. After that, she’ll start on cats. There were some breeds of dogs that where missing from the top 50 list, so she’s gone back to add them.

The site is really filling out. There have been a couple of people that have signed up to the site, but it really needs more. My son has also gotten into the act. I’ve suggested that he make the log-in much more prominent. Right now it’s hidden on the side. If there was a big button on the homepage telling people to register, that might be enough to attract more users/contributors.

The Pet Wiki has been seen in 21 countries across the world and 29 states across America. This is a very English based site, so I have no idea what people from Germany or Sweeden see in it. I don’t cate why they come, I just like seeing them.