WebProNews

Tag: humor

  • Easter Bunny Pictures Draw Nice Seasonal Traffic for Cheezburger Network

    Traffic to Sketchy Bunnies is up 44% this week, a spokesperson for the Cheezburger Network tells WebProNews. That’s the site the company had just launched when we spoke with founder and CEO Ben Huh at SXSW last month.

    “It’s based on the site Sketchy Santas, which we purchased last year, and it’s about basically people in bunny suits, and other people – the miniature humans that react to them,” Huh said in the interview. “I think it’s great for Easter, and it’s basically just a seasonal website for us.”

    Sketchy Bunnies is just part of FAIL Blog, but clearly it’s a seasonal hit.

    Sketchy Bunnies

    When we posted our interview with Huh, someone accused him of taking their idea in the comments (we can’t speculate on the validity of that), linking to another site called “The Hoppening“. It is in fact a similar concept, but Sketchy Bunnies is certainly better maintained. The Hoppening hasn’t had an update since March 31 2010. You would think April would be the prime month for keeping such a site active, and clearly they’ve already long given up on the concept.

    The Hoppening

    “So far at the office, everybody has had traumatic nightmares about their childhood, so I think that’s excellent,” Huh told us, when discussing Sketchy Bunnies.

    With Easter quickly approaching, and these sketchy images making their rounds through the social networks, we’d imagine it will be a frightful weekend for plenty of people.

  • Email Lives: Even Mark Zuckerberg’s Dog Uses It

    Ok, this is admittedly silly, but in light of recent conversations about email being in danger because of social media services like Facebook and Twitter, it seemed worth mentioning – especially when you consider that Facebook has suggested in the past that email is “probably going away”.

    You may recall earlier this month when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his girlfriend Priscilla Chan got a dog named Beast and created a Facebook Page for it (Beast currently has over 75,000 fans by the way). Beast has posted the above photo with the text, “Just writing some emails. Typical morning.”

    I’ve got to wonder if it is typically Zuckerberg updating Beast’s page. He and Chan are listed as the only page owners. It’s funny to think about the young billionaire sitting around posting Dog photos while his company is taking over the world in so many ways.

    Beast has been fairly active on Facebook. There have even been a great deal more updates made to Beast’s page than to Zuckerberg’s. Of course, he does have a reputation for keeping things casual.

    In January, Facebook began rolling out its own messaging service and email addresses more rapidly, after introducing them in November.

    “We don’t expect anyone to wake up tomorrow and say, ‘Ok, I’m going to shut down my Yahoo Mail account or my Gmail account,” Zuckerberg said when the social inbox was introduced. He later added that maybe one day people will start to say that email isn’t as important as it was before, though it “will always be a part.”

    A recent report from comScore and the Pew Internet Project found that people are still using email quite heavily – just less for casual conversation.  “Overall, when you look at how many teens have ever sent an e-mail, it’s most of them, so it’s still being used,” said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist with the Pew Internet Project. “It just isn’t used for communicating with people you’re primarily communicating with in your life, namely your friends, and it’s absolutely true that text messaging and messaging through social networks has supplanted e-mail messaging to friends.”

    Other studies have found that social media services like Facebook and Twitter can help to drive email marketing.

    You can expect email to continue to grow along with mobile phone use as well. comScore recently found mobile email usage is seeing significant growth.

    It would also appear that more dogs are starting to adopt the popular communication channel.

  • iPad 2 Buyer Reportedly Got it For Free After “Wife Said No”

    It only makes good business sense for a company to pay close attention to returns being made on a new product, to ensure there are no major defects. Apple has taken their monitoring of the iPad 2 to the next level.

    An individual may return the wildly popular iPad 2 tablet for many reasons. The backlight may bleed, it may have dead pixels, the Wi-Fi could be wishy-washy, you just might have gotten one cheaper off of a street scalper…or after an impulse buy your spouse might make you return it.

    Wife Said No Note Said to Be Sent to Apple with iPad 2 ReturnMacRumors recently reported that Apple took notice when a man returned his iPad 2 with a note attached that read, “Wife said no.” An undisclosed source that is “close to Apple” said that the note caught on and climbed its way up the corporate ladder to two Apple execs who made the decision to send the man a free iPad 2. The quote from this undisclosed source reads:

    “[Apple’s] focus this week has been to troubleshoot all the iPad 2s that customers are returning to the stores. One iPad came back with a post it note on it that said “Wife said no.” It was escalated as something funny, and two of the VPs got wind of it. They sent the guy an iPad 2 with a note on it that said “Apple said yes.”

    If this story is true, and Apple actually said, “Yes,” Apple has some pretty amazing customer service taking place, and one very happy customers to boot. And I’d bet that any customer’s wife would be A-OK with him receiving a free iPad.

    Don’t get your hopes up too high with the idea of receiving a free iPad 2 after returning your iPad with a clever note attached. Sure, the Cupertino giant wants to satisfy customers, especially after iPad 2 returns claim bleeding backlights and yellow splotches on the screen, but the validity of MacRumors’ aid ‘source’ is questionable at best.

    Apple has yet to confirm the validity of the story. True or not, this makes for a very cute and humorous customer service story.

    Did you have to obtain spousal approval before buying your iPad?

  • Easter Bunny Pictures and More Ways to Use Venture Capital

    At SXSW in Austin, WebProNews spoke with Ben Huh, Founder and CEO of the Cheezburger Network about some upcoming projects from the company, and a new site they launched aimed at capturing the darker part of Easter. It’s called Sketchy Bunnies.

    “It’s based on the site Sketchy Santas, which we purchased last year, and it’s about basically people in bunny suits, and other people – the miniature humans that react to them,” Huh tells us. “I think it’s great for Easter, and it’s basically just a seasonal website for us.”

    “So far at the office, everybody has had traumatic nightmares about their childhood, so I think that’s excellent,” he adds.

    Huh talked about the venture capital the Cheezburger Network raised, and some of the plans for that money.

    “We raised $30 million from for VCs…the reason for it was we wanted the room to experiment,” Huh explains. “We’ve been a profitable company since we started in September of 2007 – we’ve been profitable every quarter. So what we wanted to do was, since we have a model that already works, can we just do something crazy and try to blow it up much bigger, so this money gives us room to hire, try out new ideas, and actually fail, because that’s something that we as humans are very good at.”

    “It’s money that we feel good about taking risks with,” he continues. “We want want to go challenge our existing ideas, and challenge existing models about how to do content, and we want to make sure we can provide the right support and tools for our users, and so we’re going to use that money to hire a lot of engineers, and reach out to the community, and continue to build out more features for us.”

    Huh hopes to bring more of a gaming element to the Cheezburger properties. “We’re trying some things out with game dynamics, so we see it’s very hot this year, and was last year as well,” he says.

    This sounds like a smart move if SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatch is right about this being the decade of games.

    “I believe 2 or 3 of the investors in Zynga are also investors in us,” Huh says. “We don’t have a partnership with Zynga or anything like that, and I don’t think we really need to. They’re very different properties, but we want to help people understand humor and user-generated content through the lens of games, because that’s what happens right now. People come to our site, submit a bunch of photos, and hope that they make it to the front page, and that is part of the game.”

    According to Zynga, 40-year-old moms are the new hard core gamers. I know from experience that they tend to like funny cat pictures and other areas the Cheezburger Network specialize in as well.

  • Charlie Sheen: Crazy, Savvy, or Both?

    Charlie Sheen: Crazy, Savvy, or Both?

    So the consensus from everyone, including people in Hollywood and regular folks, is Charlie Sheen has gone around the bend. However, the more I take in the Charlie Sheen social media experience, I’m beginning to think there’s some savvy to go along with the insanity.

    If anything can be a commodity, why not craziness? Also, what better way to market your shenanigans than posting it on Twitter?

    hey Guinness, might wanna start writing them in pencil.
    #checkit ; you’ve been warned.
    c 10 hours ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

    WebProNews has already reported about Sheen being the fastest Twitter user in history to gain 1 million followers.

    To go along with this feat, “Sheen’s-Korner” (NSFW: language), a UStream channel has already garnered over 600,000 views. Episode 2, titled “Torpedoes of Truth” received 327k views on its own. He really opened up during this episode, showing a phone call with who appears to be his agent.

    If the UStream views aren’t enough to convince one of the success Sheen is having with social media, he’s already searching for an intern. Of course, in order to be Charlie Sheen’s intern, you must be filled with #tigerblood and full of #winning.

    I’m looking to hire a #winning INTERN with #TigerBlood. Apply here – http://bit.ly/hykQQF #TigerBloodIntern #internship #ad 1 hour ago via Ad.ly Network · powered by @socialditto

    It has been reported (during my typing of this article) that Sheen has been fired from Two and a Half Men. Which could truly prove the power of social media. With Sheen being fired from his moneymaking job, will Twitter and UStream be powerful enough to carry him to his next gig? Or has his life become the gig now?

  • iPad 2 Gets Conan Treatment

    iPad 2 Gets Conan Treatment

     

    Apple’s iPad 2 is already drawing parody in late night TV before it’s even available to consumers. Conan O’Brien did a video mocking Apple’s iPad 2 video, which it played at the launch event and posted to the web.

    “I don’t know about you, but I saw the video,” says Conan, introducing his version. “I personally think that the people at Apple are starting to get a little bit cocky. I do.”

    “iPad 2 is the culmination of literally 2 to 3 meanings. It’s truly incredible how little we did,” says Graham Davies, Vice President Marketing in Conan’s video. “We knew that if we changed the color, put pictures of water droplets on the desktop, made it a little faster, added two holes with cheap cameras in them, and just kind of flattened it a bit, people would just go nuts.”

    “One of my favorite things about the iPad 2 launch is that I get to keep this tight black shirt, which I think really pops against white backgrounds,” adds Graham Davies, Vice President Marketing.

    “Is iPad 2 incredible? Yes,” says Merti Mahlo-D’que – Vice President Dream-Telligence. “Are you believing what I’m saying partially because I have a non-specific ethnic accent? Absolutely.”

    “Most customers will say, ‘What about me? I just bought the old iPad.’ And to you, I say F*** off,” says Davies.

    At the end, the following text appears: “iPad 2. You’ll buy it no matter what we say.”

    The iPad 2 will ship on March 11 in 26 countries, followed by more on March 25. If you really did buy the old one, Apple’s real response is to give you a hundred bucks off your purchase – a little more desirable than the response in Conan’s iPad video.

  • Stephen Colbert Mocks The Huffington Post, Starts “Colbuffington Re-Post”

    Stephen Colbert recently made fun of the Google vs. Bing debate, and now he’s taken on the Huffington Post’s content strategy, which has been in the news a lot since its acquisition by AOL. 

    "Huffpo is famous for its extensive, comprehensive coverage of things other people produced and put on the Internet," says Colbert.

    "Hopefully HuffPo will be a new source of revenue for AOL, whose income currently depends on 82 year old Delaware resident Claire Meyers and the $10 an hour she still pays for dial up service," he adds.


    "Until the Huffington Post pays me for re-purposing my content…I am happy to announce my brand new website, The ColBuffington Re-Post," Colbert proclaims. "It has got everything you love about the Huffington Post, because it’s the Huffington Post with a new border around it that says, ‘The Colbuffington Re-Post.’"

    View it here.

    The Colbert ReportUntil Stephen sees some of Arianna Huffingpo’s cash, welcome to THE COLBUFFINGTON RE-POST http://bit.ly/eyLIef

  • Groupon Has “Invisibility Cloak Wednesdays”

    Groupon Has “Invisibility Cloak Wednesdays”

    Groupon has posted a video showing off what a typical Wednesday looks like at the Groupon headquarters.

    It’s almost as if nobody’s there at all…

    Groupon says the video is an "effort to remain transparent." 

    Rimshot.

    It could turn into a nice little viral video to follow up the ill-concieved Super Bowl spots.

     

  • Is Human Google Phone Support the Internet

    Everyone wants to believe that something spectacular and mysterious is true. Among the many ‘legends’ are Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster (Nessie) and more.

    Well, for the Internet marketing set one of these legends is the mysterious monster that isn’t so much a being but an action. It’s called the Legend of Humanoid Google Customer Service Support Entity. Believe it or not, there has been a siting but we are not ready to say that this mythical creature truly exists.

    Mike Blumenthal talks about his strange encounter with this mysterious creature that is like John Carpenter’s Fog. It rolls in and does its work then slinks off. Very few see this in action and we suspect that even fewer have lived to tell about it. It looks like Mike has though as he reports from his local Internet marketing blog in a post today.

    I have been working to un-merge two listings on Google since November 5th.

    This last Thursday I received the following voice mail on my answering machine after hours. To prove to the world that it really happened I am posting a copy of the message.

    Hi. This message is for Mike. My name is Joe and I am calling from Google.

    I received an elevated concern from one of our sales representatives named James who apparently you spoke with around January 3rd. We were able to take a look at the two you listings you described to James, the Westcott House and the Bayfront Marin House, the two bed and breakfast that are located in St Augustine Fl.

    And I just wanted to let you know that I was able to split those listings and during our next update of all the data on Google you should see that those listings have been split apart and if you have any further questions or problems please don’t hesitate to contact us on-line on our Google.com/help.

    Thank you very much for your business.

    What? A phone message AND a thank you for your business?!?!?!? Surely this is an anomaly. Surely, the legend of the Humanoid Google Customer Support Entity is just a myth……or is it?

    Anyone else seen this creature in the wild?

    Originally published on FrankThinking.com

  • Google Tries to Thank Advertisers with Bees, Dominoes, and Moon Writing

    Last month, Google celebrated the ten year anniversary of AdWords, and now the company has taken the time to thank all of the businesses who have used AdWords to advertise. 

    Gooogle being Google had to go all out of course, and give thanks in interesting and creative ways…or at least try to. They ran into some hiccups as this video would indicate. Working with robotic bees, large amounts of dominoes, and writing on the moon aren’t the easiest tasks, we would imagine. 

    Google Thanks Twellow with Bees

    Google Thanks Twellow with Dominoes

    Google Thanks Twellow with Moon Writing

    Watch the entire video here

    Twellow thanks Google for going to such great lengths. 

    Google recently invited advertisers to tell stories about their businesses to help celebrate the anniversary, and the company shared those on a global map

    /td>

    You can still upload your story either as text or as video. If you prefer, you can just add a picture of yourself, your team, or your business. These can be uploaded here

  • Can Google TV on the Logitech Revue Turn You Into Kevin Bacon?

    Logitech has a new ad for its Revue device (the set-top box/Blu-Ray player with Google TV) that has Kevin Bacon playing a guy that is a huge Kevin Bacon fan in what quite possibly is some of Kevin Bacon’s finest work to date. 

    Maybe this ad is just what Google TV needs to pick itself up after a disappointing launch. 

    Logitech’s description for the video says, "Can watching too much Kevin Bacon on the Logitech Revue with Google TV actually turn you into Kevin Bacon? Ivan Cobenk has his fingers crossed."

    It will be interesting to see if Logitech produces more Ivan Cobenk commercials in the future or similar ads with other celebrities. 

    The Revue is arguably the most imporant device for Google TV’s initial success because its cheaper and much more practical for consumers than buying a whole new TV (from Sony). The true success of the platform, however, will really rely on the number of devices it can get on – the Netflix model (or Android for that matter). If it can get on a wide range of devices, including things like Sony’s Playstation, that will be a huge win for Google TV, even if it doesn’t get the TV networks on board (though that would be pretty helpful too, I’d imagine). 

    (via Matt Burns at CrunchGear)

     

  • New Media is Like Ostrich Meat. Eventually, Your Kids Will Grow Up Eating It.

    WebProNews recently spoke with popular radio and podcast personality Adam Carolla. After being fired from his radio show, he started a podcast and after just two weeks, it reached 2.4 million downloads. Some people consider him a pioneer in podcasting, but he doesn’t seem to really think of it that way. "I was doing a radio show, and then they fired me," he says.

    Should you wait until you lose your job to start trying something new? Tell us what you think

    His friend then told him he should do a podcast. After explaining to him what a podcast was, he convinced Carolla to sign on. "I’m flattered that people think of me as some sort of podcast pioneer," Carolla tells WebProNews. "There are people who were doing it before I was doing it. There will be people doing it after I was doing it. We didn’t invent anything. Maybe we were a little more consistent about it or approached it in a little different way, and you know, if people like to give me more credit than I deserve, I’m always willing to take it."

    "But you know also, the whole pioneering thing, you know a lot of people say, ‘well, you got in on the ground floor of this’ and they act like you bought Macintosh or Apple stock, you know, in 1979," he continues. "It’s not quite the same. It’s more like…I always tell people, ‘the guys who played in the NFL in the 50’s were sort of pioneers, but those guys made 8 grand a year, and had to work at used car lots during the off season with no benefits,’ so pioneer…not necessarily a rich pioneer…you’d be much better off playing in the NFL now and making millions of dollars, so it’s somewhat analogous in that it’s nice to be known as the first guy to the party and the pioneer and all that stuff, but on the other hand, you don’t get rich just because you were there first."

    Inspiring words for anyone who may think they are late to the game at this point. The fact is that it’s still very early in the game, particularly when it comes to monetization. 

    "When it comes to advertisers and monetizing the podcast, there’s nothing that people have done and are aware of and so when you’re trying to get ad dollars from companies and they have traditionally used terrestrial radio and print and cable television and network television and sky writing and banners on the back of airplanes and blimps and everything else, this is new," says Carolla. "And people are a little weird about new, and it’s sort of like…I remember about ten years ago, people wanted us to eat ostrich meat, and they’d go ‘well it tastes like beef and it’s lean and it has less fat than beef and it’s better for you and it’s cheaper per pound, and people went…’I don’t know. I never ate ostrich growing up. That seems weird to me.’ and you’re like what’s the difference…"

    "So there’s that little transition, and you can tell them until you’re blue in the face ‘hey, it’s better and it’s leaner and it’s cheaper and it’s whatever’, and they’re still like, ‘I want a burger.’ So that’s what you’re dealing with," continues. "Now eventually, you start getting people going ‘hey, I tried that ostrich burger and it’s pretty solid,’ and then eventually, their kids grow up eating ostrich burger and it makes no difference to them, and they start preferring it over the beef, because it’s cheaper and leaner and whatever else it is. So there is that transition where no matter how much you tell them, and how good it is for them, there’s still [the] old school that goes, ‘I don’t know.’ But, we’ve seen all that change in the last six months. I mean it just changed. People are stepping up. They’re advertising. They’re getting their checkbooks out. They’re not writing anything on them, but they’re getting the checkbook out…but they understand, a couple hundred thousand people’s a couple hundred thousand people. It doesn’t matter what they’re listening to or how they’re listening to it."

    As far as content production, Carolla doesn’t see new media as much different than old media. "There’s not much to it. It’s not that different….everyone tries to kind of spin it into something different, but you get a microphone, and sometimes you get a camera, and you sit there and talk, and you tell jokes or you have some provocative conversation, and either people want to hear it or see it or they don’t, and you put it up on the computer vs. the TV set or on an MP3 player vs. the car stereo or radio, but either way, it’s just you talking and people listening…"

    Carolla’s talking about podcasting, but you can see where this logic would apply across the whole new media board.

    Is new media really that different than old media? Share your thoughts.

  • A Fake Eric Schmidt And A Fake Mark Zuckerberg

    Michael Arrington of TechCrunch created a fake Facebook account for Google CEO Eric Schmidt, showing that Facebook probably needs to do more to verify users. I’m guessing that Schmidt still has access to more personal information on Arrington, however. 

    On Saturday, Saturday Night Live ran a couple Facebook-related sketches – one, a Weekend Update interview with Mark Zuckerberg (played by Andy Samberg), the other, a sketch about a Facebook filter to hide stuff from your mom. Both are provided by Hulu:

    Microsoft unveiled nine new devices today from a variety of manufacturers and carriers, that will feature its Windows Phone 7 operating system. There is plenty of speculation about how successful this will be. Engadget has provided a nice little roundup of noteworthy apps for Windows Phone 7.

    TechCrunch reports that it’s probably going to be a while before Apple releases an iPhone that works on 4G networks. This appears to be unconfirmed speculation, but not without reason. 

    The Unofficial Apple Weblog reports that Apple has been awarded a trademark for the phrase, "There’s an app for that". If only there could be a fine issued everytime it’s spoken aloud. 

    Rapper Eminem’s publisher is trying to get money out of Apple for downloads of his music (via). The publisher has reportedly asked a US District Court judge in Detroit to enforce a $2.2 million settlement reached in a lawsuit against Apple.

    Chris O’Brien at MecuryNews has an interesting piece about why cell phones may be more dangerous than you think. Along with the article itself, there are some interesting comments debating both sides of the argument. 

  • Mark Zuckerberg Talks Success After Dropping Out of School (on The Simpsons)

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been in the press a lot over the last couple of weeks. Ok, he’s been in the press a lot all year, but particularly as The Social Network approached its theatrical release Friday. 

    Zuckerberg also announced a $100 million donation to public schools and the launch of a new foundation called Startup:Education. Some considered the move little more than a PR tactic to improve his image as The Social Network paints it as one who betrays, (at least to some – the beauty of the film is that this is very open to debate). Others simply praised the gesture. 

    Either way, Zuckerberg displayed a sense of humor about the topic of education in a voice-over he contributed to The Simpsons, which aired last night. 

    In the clip, Lisa Simpson asks Zuckerberg to talk about how education was instrumental to his success. To this, he reponsed, "Well, the truth is, I dropped out of Harvard."

    "Better earnin’ than learnin’," declared the character of Nelson. 

    "Hell yeah! I’ll get the best kind of degree…honorary baby!" exclaimed Zuckerberg. He then pointed to Bill Gates and Virgin Airlines’ Richard Branson as other dropouts. A janitor steps out and says he hasn’t done too well for himself, and proclaims that he graduated. 

    The Social Network topped the box office over the weekend. Read our review here

  • Jimmy Kimmel and Drake Make Twitter Less Funny

    Jimmy Kimmel Live showed a video this week featuring the titular Kimmel and currently-popular entertainer Drake singing/rapping about tweets. Something has clearly jumped the shark here, and it’s just a question of what: Jimmy Kimmel Live or Twitter-related comedy.

    These types of skits may have still been mildly amusing a year ago, but it’s clear that Twitter is part of popular culture now, and viewed as a valid form of communication. Ask anyone who has tweeted from the scene of a natural disaster or some other historic event (tragic or otherwise). At this point, you might as well be parodying email or TVs.

    Yes, people say pointless things on Twitter. Some of them are famous. We get it.  It’s getting pretty “ You might be a redneck if… ” On the other hand, Jeff Foxworthy seems to still be doing pretty well for himself.

    I’m sure Twitter (the company) doesn’t mind. As I’ve speculated before, such name-dropping may be one of the biggest contributors to the growth of the service.

    What do you think?