Some of you may be wondering what these extra tidbits are on the website. What is twitter, facebook and Petfinder? Let us explain.

TWITTER

What is a "twitter"?
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

With Twitter, you can stay hyper–connected to your friends and always know what they’re doing. Or, you can stop following them any time. You can even set quiet times on Twitter so you’re not interrupted.

Twitter puts you in control and becomes a modern antidote to information overload.

Twitter asks the question, “What are you doing?” and allows you to send a small update (limited to just 140 characters) to your followers. The concept is amazingly simple and that is perhaps one of the main reasons why it has caught on like wildfire.

The restriction to 140 characters has resulted in Twitter being labeled “micro blogging”. One of the key benefits of Twitter is that you can send and receive updates (also called tweets) via your browser, email , instant messaging clients and SMS so you can keep in touch no matter where you are.

Every time you send out a tweet, all your followers will see it. Unlike blogs, Twitter is a real time broadcasting medium. You update, it is broadcast to your followers, and then it is largely forgotten (but not quite!) When you first join Twitter you have no followers and you are not following anybody else so it can seem pretty lonely. I think this one of the reasons that some people just “don’t get it” when they first start.

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PETFINDER

Petfinder.com is the national “yellow pages” for animal shelters and rescue groups. They refer to themselves as a “directory of homeless pets and pet adoption organizations”, but they are a godsend for the groups they serve.

The online database has more than 300,000 homeless pets listed and almost 12,000 non-profit animal welfare groups.  It is one of the busiest websites on the Internet; and it is free and very easy to use.

Petfinder.com refers to itself as a “virtual shelter” where “your family can visit hundreds of shelters, get to know the pets, and not have to drive all around town to do it.” Many animal rescue groups credit 50% of their adoptions to the website. And the people who come to meet a cat or dog they saw on Petfinder.com are generally more prepared to take home a pet that day.

.	In 2006, the website was purchased by Discovery Communications. Since that time they have added educational articles, health information, grooming tips and more. They have also set up a charitable foundation

If you are interested in adopting cat, dog, bird, horse or barnyard animal, I highly recommend that your search begin with Petfinder.com.

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FACEBOOK

Facebook is a great way to meet friends and keep up on what they are doing. Once you add a friend to your Facebook friend list you will always know when they are adding things to their blog or updating their profile. Join Facebook groups to meet people like you, or browse the profiles to find new friends. Facebook's classmates and co-worker search is good for finding friends too.
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FaceBook is a social networking site that allows users to connect and share information. Michele Martin at the Bamboo Project Blog has a good description of Facebook:

" FaceBook is an Internet site that allows users to post online profiles (including photos, information about themselves, etc.) and then connect to other users who share the same interests, experiences, etc. Zuckerberg threw up FaceBook while he was a student at Harvard to provide an online avenue for students to find one another. It has since morphed into a social network for everyone."

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