Service-a-day: Twitter

I know, I know. It sounds scary. But I assure you, friends. Twitter is nothing to be afraid of.

I'll try to explain it and how we use it to keep you loopt. But for an in-depth tutorial on twitter, I highly recommend this video.

In a nut-shell, Twitter helps us keep you posted about your best friend absolutely FREE of charge.

What it is
Twitter is like a homepage for a user's custom status updates that answer the question "What are you doing?". That's it. Short (max 140 characters). Simple. To the point.

From Twitter's Home Page:

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?

In our case, the answer to that question is "we're on a walk". Which brings me to...

How it works for Top Dog
Say we take your dog, Rufus, for a walk between 1pm and 2pm every other day of the week. We'll take a picture of Rufus on our walk and post a little 140 character note about him (i.e. - "Rufus is walking really well today. He must've gotten a good 8 hours last night.")

(Above) How a post appears on Twitter.com/topdogwalk

(Above) A picture and map example from the same Twitter post

How you use it
You don't have to sign up for an account. All you have to do is go to www.twitter.com/topdogwalk when your dog is scheduled for a walk and you'll see your dog's name in our note along with a link (that looks like this: http://loopt.us/qMLVBA.t) to his picture and current location on a map*.

If you already have a twitter account, great. By following us, you'll receive all our updates automatically on your homepage without linking directly to ours.

Basically, you get to walk with us. Virtually.




Help
If it still sounds too foreign, don't worry. We're here to help. We'll come over and explain it face-to-face so you can get the most out of every walk.




We'll post about walks, about doggy-related breaking news, and link you into important dog things on the web.

So that's it. Have a great Monday. We'll walk on the web again soon.

TD


*This is all optional. As with any Top Dog service, if you don't want it, that's a-ok.