New Crittersnaps! Website

We have one Guernsey cow, Carole. We milk her each day, by hand, so we can have fresh Channel Islands milk on the farm. I became involved with the English Guernsey Cattle Society and set up their website. Along the way I was asked to create a "virtual show" where eight cattle photos were posted each month --- cattle from all over the world --- and Guernsey enthusiasts were asked to rank them 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

There were no prizes --- only braggin' rights. And those didn't go to the cow who came in first, but to the person who came closest to the "correct" rankings.

This gave me the idea of creating another type of "virtual" show --- and instead of restricting it to Guernsey cattle, I wanted to include all types of animals. Cows and dogs, cats and rabbits, alpacas and goats.

Instead of ranking the critters, visitors would be asked to rate each animal on a scale of 1 to 10. In other words, it's a bit like www.hotornot.com and a bit like a cattle virtual show.

We asked some talented database programmers in India to work on this, at Epitome Technologies. The website was designed for us by Jeff Clark at the Vacant Canvas in Boston. Jeff has done several great websites for us already, including our main dog hotel website and our Berkshire - Tamworth pig website. (He's also created a fun website for us, Rear Admirable.) Lisa Haller of the Dancing Nomad came up with the Crittersnaps! name, and wrote the snappy copy.

The new Crittersnaps! website took us all about six or seven months to create. We're going "live" tomorrow, September 12, 2006, when we distribute a press release via PRWeb.

We hope that visitors will enjoy dropping in to vote when they have a few minutes. Visitors can either vote on random critters --- or can narrow the search to a particular type of animal (dogs, cats, etc.) or type/breed, or type/breed/gender.

To upload a photo, registration is necessary. There's a small charge of US $2.50 to upload an image. This will pay for a unique, fixed URL for the image. And statistics on the voting on your dog, cat, cow, etc. There is also a "meet me" facility where folks can meet each other, with the consent of both.

I hope folks will visit the Crittersnaps! website and have fun voting.