The Hear & Meow: Notes from Catster HQ

Hiya, Catsters! As this year comes to a close, I thought it would be a purrfect idea to focus on some of the editorial highlights in and around the Catster empire in 2008! In addition to doing things like making extensive enhancements to our cat breed info pages and launching our all inclusive Dog and Cat Owner's Manuals, we managed to roll out a or enhance a few other new projects as well. Check it out!

2008 really was the year of the blog for Catster. It was with great pleasure that we launched The Cat's Meow: Catster's Cats and Kittens Blog, an event that was made even more exciting by the fact that Skeezix the Cat and his Food Lady Karen Nichols hopped on board to write it. Skeezix and Karen hit the catwalk running, and have been delighting readers with news, tips and fun for the past couple months now. Stay tuned for more fun--to make sure you don't miss a beat, sign up for the RSS feed or the email updates now!

We also launched Snuzzy this year, our pet and animal humor site where "cute and fuzzy collide." I've been pleasantly surprised with the success of this blog, and have enjoyed the feedback that I receive from our readers. So much of what makes Dogster and Catster successful has to do with the fact that our members and readers have great senses of humor and extreme fondness for all things cute, fuzzy and furry, so it was only logical that we launch the Snuzz. I look forward to continuing to find the snuzz and post it for you as the new year unfolds.

The Daily Cat Tip was also born in 2008, a blog that offers up a short daily bit of handy info that should be of interest to cat owners and cat lovers alike. Tracie Hotchner, author of The Cat Bible, has been writing the tips for us since we launched the blog in September. Look for more helpful tips on a whole slew of topics in 2009... AND, you can also get the tips delivered to you via Twitter! Just follow Catster by clicking here!

And speaking of Twitter, we've really been working hard to develop our Twitter presence, in order to make our followers aware of happenings, articles and fun stuff that cat lovers need to know about. We've got over 500 followers and more are coming every day! If you're not following us yet, and wish to do so, or just want to find out what all of the fuss is about, jump on over to our Twitter homepage.

Our Vet Blog, written by veterinarian Dr. Eric Barchas, has grown to be one of the most comprehensive medical blogs for pet owners on the Internet. Whether responding to your questions or to current events in the pet medical community, Dr. Barchas provides helpful daily advice to pet owners all over the world.

And, if that's not enough fur ya, we managed to sneak in a couple more exciting projects here at the end of 2008...

In order to start an open dialogue regarding the pet health insurance industry, we partnered with Trupanion to start the Pet Insurance and Health Care Blog in December. This is a place where readers are free to share their experiences, pawsitive and negative, with pet health care--so that we can all learn more about how the industry works!

And quizzes? We got yer quizzes! For those of you who have always been interested in finding out which celebrity your cat most closely matches, take our Celebrity Pet Quiz (also a 2008 addition) and find out!

And what good is a website with a bunch of different kinds of cats if we can't... stroll through all of them and try to guess their breeds! That's right, December also saw the launch of the Cat Breed Photo Game, which has been a huge hit in just a short period of time. Haven't played yet, or want to secure your name on the leader board? Give it a whirl now!

Turns out I could go on furever and ever, but I'll leave you with a little 2008 World's Coolest Dog Show info and let you get back to hanging out on Dogster. For the second year in a row, over 3 MILLION votes were cast on over 20,000 entries, making the coolest pet photo contest on the Internet a success once again!

Whew. What a year.

But the most important announcement that we have to make this year is that we plan to ride this creative momentum well into the new year! So stay tuned--we've got lots more excitement coming your way in 2009 from Catster HQ!

I'd like to finish by thanking all of our dedicated members, regular visitors and curious passers-by for helping us grow to be the #1 community for cat-lovers on the Internet. Many companies faced challenges in 2008, and Dogster and Catster were no exceptions. But we want you to know that we're keeping our tails up and our claws sharp as we push off into 2009, and aim to continue to provide you with the cat-friendly content that you've come to know and love. We always appreciate your feedback and look forward to continuing to hear from you in the coming year.

Purrs, meows and head-butts,

Anders Porter
Editorial & Content Manager
Dogster, Inc.

Maybe you've noticed a few extra thumbs hanging around Snuzzy's house lately? Well, as our overall blog readership continues to grow, we find ourselves more and more eager to find out what y'all are digging and what you're not digging. We LOVE when people leave comments--it's the most honest and direct line of communication between the reader and the blogger, for sure. But those of you who don't have time to leave a comment, or don't really like to do it, will be happy to know that we've developed a Snuzz Factor system for our humor blog Snuzzy.com.

A simple "snuzz it up" or "snuzz it down" is all it takes--if you like the post, click on the Snuzzy logo with his thumb pointing up. If you don't care for it, "snuzz it down" by clicking on the dude with the downward-pointing thumb. Piece o' cake, right? Right.

After you've snuzzed the vote, you'll get a little thank you message that looks like this:

And then when you refresh the page or come back to it later, you'll see what the current Snuzz Factor is:

That's it! We hope that you have fun with and really get into it! It's a way to really let other Snuzzy readers know which bits of fuzzy cuteness just can't be missed! AND also which ones miss the cuteness scale completely.

Don't get me wrong, we still love your comments and hope that you continue to post them. In fact, if you snuzz something up, let us know why. Likewise if you give it the old downward-facing snuzz, feel free to explain your choice!

So what are you waiting for? Get on over there and Snuzz the Vote!

The Cat's Meow: Catster's Cats and Kittens Blog is here!

After all of the waiting and pawing, meowing and speculating, Catster's eagerly anticipated blog dedicated to all things feline is here!

Written by Karen Nichols and her "kyoot" little pal Skeezix, the blog aims to cover all the things that cat-lovers are scratching to get at: news, information, events, product reviews, pet food recalls, and, of course, feline fun!

Every single one of us at Catster HQ is super-duper excited to welcome Karen and Skeezix on board, and to be able to add yet another exciting product to our family of cat blogs and dog blogs!

You can subscribe to The Cat's Meow via RSS feed here, or by getting email updates here. Enjoy!

These mysterious shots were placed under the doormat here at Catster HQ this morning. Can you make heads or cat-tails out of them? Because we sure can't.

And this postcard was included as well:

Any clues about what this might mean? Leave your comments (reactions?) below. ;-)