According to a report from Bloomberg, the online comedy site has “hired a financial adviser to evaluate options including a possible sale”
In a memo to employees, CEO Dick Glover said that they’re not exactly trying to sell Funny or Die, but they are bringing in experts to evaluate the situation, considering the recent interest the company has received.
“We’ve received unsolicited interest from a number of companies. We are NOT trying to sell Funny or Die, but we thought it wise to engage some experts to help us evaluate the situation. In the meantime, if any of you mistakenly receive a briefcase full of cash, please bring it to my office immediately,” said Glover.
Another source told Bloomberg that an investment bank, working at Funny or Die’s behest, has “contacted potential buyers to gauge their interest in a deal.”
Funny or Die was founded in 2007 by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, and Chris Henchy. Through the dissemination of user-submitted content, the comedy site grew in popularity. It soon acquired high-profile contributors, whose various comedy shorts routinely star A-list talent. Earlier this year, the site’s popular short Between Two Ferns snagged President Barack Obama for an episode.
Funny or Die already some corporate backing – funding from Sequoia Capital and a minority stakeholder in Time Warner.
In November of 2013, Instagram debuted its first-ever ad. Featuring a gold watch and the caption “Pampered in Paris”, the photo from Michael Kors marked Instagram’s entrance into the big game. Instagram had held out for a while, maintaining its status as an ad-free zone for years – but that was until Facebook gobbled it up for a billion dollars. Facebook wasn’t going to sit around and let Instagram not make any money for too long.
Instagram is starting slow with advertising. That’s what the company is saying, literally. “We’re starting slow with advertising to make sure we take time to get the experience right for our ad partners and the Instagram community,” says Instagram in response to the question How do I advertise? Considering the history the company has when it comes to ad products and public freakouts, this is probably a wise decision.
How slow? Well, Instagram started out with only a handful of big-name partners like Ben & Jerry’s, Burberry, Levi’s, Macy’s, PayPal, and Lexus. Since then, they’ve taken on a handful of others like Taco Bell and Hollister – but for the most part Instagram’s ad product is a gated community. It’ll let everyone else in on the fun at some point – but as of now there’s no timetable for that.
Whenever that happens, however, Instagram’s ad product will likely explode. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that when ramped up to full scale, Facebook could have a $100 million-per-quarter monster on its hands with Instagram.
All signs point to Instagram getting incredibly serious about ads. This week, the company unveiled its first-ever video ads – which have been in the works for months. These 15-second video ads will autoplay in users’ feeds and will begin popping up immediately. Like the original photo ads, Instagram’s video ads are being handled with kid gloves. The company has only five partners so far – Disney, Activision, Lancome, Banana Republic and CW.
While the debut of video ads is clearly the biggest step forward for their total ad product, Instagram has been making smaller steps over the past few months. Last month, we learned that the company is preparing to jump across the pond with its ad product, and before that it debuted a shiny new analytics suite for brands.
And on the personnel front, Instagram recently made a big hire – or more aptly put, a resource shift. In August, Instagram created a new position – the Global Head of Business and Brand Development – and filled it with Facebook Regional Director James Quarles.
Nobody knows when Instagram is going to pull the trigger and open this ad product wide – but you have to imagine that with these moves, it’s at least on the horizon. That is unless Facebook is waiting for “a rainy day, when growth on the Facebook platform has slowed and the company isn’t raking in the revenue as easily as it has recently,” as suggested by GigaOm’s Carmel DeAmicis.
Either way, that time is going to come. And when it comes, will marketers bottleneck?
If you look at some of the early engagement figures – they sure as hell should.
Check out these figures from Q2, which AdWeek obtained from social media shop Shareablee:
– Facebook garnered 2.5 million brand posts, a year-over-growth of 22 percent.
– Instagram had 493,000 of such posts, a 49 percent year-over-year jump.
– Facebook accrued 6 billion actions (likes, comments or shares).
– Instagram totaled 3.4 billion actions (likes, comments).
– Facebook had 2,396 actions per post.
– Instagram racked up 6,932 actions per post.
The growth rate of brand posts is obviously swayed toward Instagram, considering it’s a newer platform. But look at those average actions per post. In terms of engagement, brands are getting much more bang for their buck on the visually-dominated Instagram landscape.
And evidence for individual brands seem to mimic this trend. Taco Bell, for instance, recently garnered 400 percent more fan engagement on promoted posts as opposed to organic posts. The company ran a month-long ad campaign on Instagram as saw its follower count increase by 45 percent.
Then there’s the Forrester study of over three million users interactions that found Instagram engagement blew other social networks’ engagement out of the water. From MarketWatch:
But one social network “blew the others away” when it comes to engagement, the report said. Brand ads posted on Instagram delivered 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more engagement per follower than Twitter.
Of course, there’s this to consider:
“While Instagram has more than 200 million monthly active users, it attracts fewer people than Facebook and Twitter do,” the report said. “Plus fewer marketers use Instagram, and those that do post less frequently. The result? Brands’ Instagram posts don’t have to fight through as much clutter to reach their followers.
“As users and marketers flock to Instagram, clutter will increase and Instagram will likely begin filtering out brands’ posts in the name of relevance. Marketers must use Instagram now, before it changes the rules – and they must be ready to move on to another social site when Instagram’s phenomenal engagement rates disappear.”
It seems that Instagram’s primary job when its ad product goes wide will be to make sure it’s careful not to clutter.
At least for now, Instagram’s pretty careful. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom has said that he’s “looking at every ad” to make sure it will be a good fit in the Instagram universe.
Of course, you can’t expect that to continue when the promoted posts start pouring in at a fast clip – but Instagram would be wise to keep at least some element of that attention to detail.
From personal experience, I can say that Instagram’s ads are some of the least intrusive and artfully constructed around. Much of that has to do with the visual nature of the medium. What do you think? Is Instagram the next frontier for big ad money?Let us know in the comments.
Your YouTube videos are about to get silky smooth – I mean seriously good-lookin’.
Back in June, YouTube announced that 48 and 60 frames-per-second videos were on the way. Well, they’re here. Kotaku has spotted the option in the wild.
To view videos at 60fps, you’ll have to be in Chrome or Safari right now. Also, you’ll have to watch them in HD (1080p or 720p).
Here’s where the option was first spotted, in a Mario Kart 8 gameplay video. You’ll see the “1080p60” option. Click it an marvel.
Google has a new video out, which it calls a “short film” about speech recognition. It starts with the early days and works its way up to the incredible technology that’s available today (including from Google, of course…okay, it’s pretty much all Google).
The description says: “Language. Easy for humans to understand (most of the time), but not so easy for computers. This is a short film about speech recognition, language understanding, neural nets, and using our voices to communicate with the technology around us.”
While you could look at the video as an ad for Google, it does serve as a pretty interesting reminder of how far this stuff has come.
Apparently, Stephen Colbert is 5’11” – a height that puts him on par with the likes of Brad Pitt, Richard Gere, and Orlando Bloom. Colbert’s proud of this.
But there’s a problem. The jerk-offs over at Google are slandering his good height. According to Google and its knowledge graph, Colbert is only 5’10”.
Might as well be a Oompa Loompa.
He took issue with this on last night’s episode of The Colbert Report, addressing Google’s Larry Page specifically.
“Larry, I demand a retraction, and investigation, an apology, and a substantial cash settlement – or I will see your ass in court,” said Colbert, pointing into the camera.
Colbert should know that this isn’t isolated to his height. Google has had plenty of issues keeping its Knowledge Graph, well, knowledgable. Seriously. You may as well call it the misinformationgraph.
Google released a new series of videos under the banner “Bring Your Local Business Online”. They total thirty minutes, and give businesses advice for doing just that even without a website.
Google recently hosted a panel discussion as part of its Talks at Google series, called “The Modern Shopper”. It’s about how technology is driving the fashion industry.
Panelists include: Steven Alan: Founder of Steve Alan; Leah Chernikoff: Editor at Elle.com; Lauren Sherman: Writer at Fashionista.com; and Brett Heyman: Founder of Edie Parker. It’s moderated by Lisa Green, Google Head of Industry, Branded Apparel & Fashion.
Did Apple rip off band and interesting video makers OK Go during Tuesday’s big iPhone 6/Apple Watch event?
The band sure thinks so.
“The videos speak for themselves and you can draw your own conclusions,” says band manager Andy Gershon, according to Bloomberg.
You probably didn’t see it, because Apple couldn’t get its shit together yesterday and totally bungled its livestream, but the company showed a short video called “Perspective” during the event. Through the use of tricky camera angles, Apple was able to achieve some neat wordplay by manipulating spacial relationships and objects. The whole premise of the ad was to honor “those who have always seen things differently.” Check it out:
Cool, right?
Do you remember OK Go’s June song “The Writing’s On the Wall”? Like most OK Go songs, it got a lot of attention thanks to an innovative music video. It has amassed over 10 million views.
So, what do you think? Is Ok Go right? Did Apple rip them off? Gershon provides more evidence to Bloomberg:
He says the band met with Apple in April to pitch that visual concept as a potential video collaboration. Apple declined, so the band made its own video. Apple then hired 1stAveMachine, the production company behind OK Go’s video, to make a video for its iPhone launch event; it also used the same director.
Apple didn’t get to where they are now by not being crafty, that’s for sure.
Apparently, the band is looking into legal action – but that’s going to be tricky. OK Go’s not the first to manipulate objects and angles, and although Apple’s ad bears a striking resemblance to parts of OK Go’s video, it appears that Apple simply riffed on a concept. Still, OK Go may have a case. If nothing else, it may become a bit of a hassle for Apple.
Google recently hosted a talk from Gadadhara Pandi, an author, meditation teacher, inspirational speaker, and lecturer at Columbia University. Pandi talks about stress management for work-life balance – something we could probably all stand to be a little better at.
From the video description:
Anxiety, insomnia, muscle tension, fatigue, high blood pressure, and anger are just some of the symptoms of stress. Stress not only affects our body, but also our behavior that can lead to social withdrawal. This presentation will explore the nature of our mind and the various factors in our lives that cause us stress. We will learn simple meditation techniques that can nourish the mind which will lead to increased focus, greater productivity, and improved relationships.
Pandit uses his life experience and decades of in-depth studies to assist people in overcoming the various stress factors in their own lives. The medical field now knows that stress leads to anxiety, insomnia, muscle tension, high blood pressure, and anger. Pandit’s unique approach applies Eastern wisdom and meditation techniques to help the audience gain deeper insight into their mind and understand the reasons we becomes stressed, anxious, and angry.
Keep Ice Bucket Challenging, folks. It’s raised a ton of money for ALS research and it continues to provide us with some pretty great videos – either successful and clever or absolute failures. Both are funny. Keep ’em coming.
But know that your Ice Bucket Challenge is probably going to fall short of this anonymous two-year-old girl’s version.
The adorably British child reacts to being doused with ice cold water in the most natural of ways. Check it out:
Fookin ELL!
The YouTube poster of the video has been forced to disable comments, as people were apparently unable to sit back and laugh at an obviously funny thing.
“Here for comedic value not for parental awareness. Get over it,” says the uploader.
I’d like to start this off by saying that this woman be crazy. This woman be so crazy she’s almost a little too crazy. This woman be so crazy that it makes me question the authenticity of this video, simply based on the fact that even crazy people are rarely this crazy.
But if we take this video, uploaded Thursday, as genuine, we have quite the viral star on our hands! Congrats lady – like this racist stripper before you, you’re now a candidate for the racists caught on camera hall of fame. Take a bow.
It appears that the crazy person was involved in a minor accident with our cameraman. This did not make her happy, and his appearance seems to tip her over the edge. Here is a sample of some of the crazy exhibited by our soon-to-be viral star.
“F*ck you, if I had a gun I would shoot you dead.”
“I’m gonna goddamn kill your kids and your mother.”
“You f*ckin Muslim.”
“You blow up school bus children, you goddamn son of a n*gger-lovin atheist bitch.”
That last one was a doozy, huh?
Here’s the thing. The video, which has amassed nearly 350,000 views, was uploaded to a comedy channel and let’s be honest, seems almost unbelievable. It’s probably real, because people are insane – but I’m going to hope, for the sake of humanity, that this is some sort of bit.
If you thought Google was done posting videos from Google I/O sessions last week, think again. They’ve uploaded a new batch to YouTube about a variety of developer topics, mostly related to developing for Google’s various platforms.
For those trying to make some money through apps on Google Play, this one should be of particular interest. It’s a panel on “How to get, keep and monetize users on Google Play.”
Panelists include Soundwave CEO Brendan O’Driscoll, FrontBack CEO Frederic Della Faille, and ZenStudios VP Mel Kirkland. It’s moderated by Shabih Rizvi.
The session is described as an overview of Google Play and a panel discussion with developers on user acquisition, engagement, and monetization.
If you’re interested in making money on Google Play (which I assume you are if you’re on this page), you’ll probably also want to check out this other video Google uploaded recently called “Making Money on Google Play”.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen the original Google boys in a room together talking about the company, so here’s a fireside chat they did with VC Vinod Khosla.
They spend some time talking about when Google almost got acquired. Here’s a snippet from Sergey Brin (via the transcript):
Well, we had developed this technology we called PageRank – sadly, not BrinRank. But anyway, it probably would’ve sold better that way. But we had developed this technology that we found was useful for search. By itself, it wasn’t really a complete search engine. What we had just searched titles of webpages and ranked them quite well. But we showed it to a bunch of the existing search companies back then. Some of you might remember them – Infoseek, Excite, Lycos. And probably, the greatest interest came from Excite, and actually came from you, Vinod. You were the investor in Excite. We spent a while talking to them, and talking to you, Vinod. You remember that. In the end, I don’t think the management team there was quite as excited about it – no pun intended. But I remember, there were four of us at the time – four grad students at Stanford. I remember, we fired off this note to Vinod. It was just a little e-mail that said, “We really don’t want to sell, but for $1.6 million, you got a deal.” And a few minutes later, we got a reply that said, “That’s a lot of dough, but ok we’ll do it.” That’s characteristic Vinod there. So then, ten minutes later, Scott – one of the four of us – comes running in, laughing. Huge grin on his face. He had faked the reply and back then, the ethics around faking emails weren’t quite the same. Anyway, so he had that big joke. The deal obviously never came to fruition, and we went our own way to build search.
Eventually the discussion turns to where Google is headed, the limitations set by governments, etc.
You can find the full transcript here if you don’t want to sit through the whole thing.
Image via YouTube
Like all other cat videos on the internet, this sure-to-be-viral-smash reimagining of Netflix’s hit show Orange Is The New Black with cats is dumb and very cute.
I mean, look how stupid that cat looks with Alex glasses. Aww.
Piper CATman? Geez, you guys.
Here, go ahead and watch this short, cute little video from The Pet Collective. I’m just being difficult, those little kittens are adorbs.
You know how there are some things that just make you happy? No, not the obvious things like beer, money, and grilled meat. I mean those times when you’re just delighted by something, inexplicably?
This is one of those times.
I guess it’s wrong to call my delight totally inexplicable. I think that it comes down to knowing that people took the time to do this. Of all the things in the world they could have done, they decided to remake, in Grand Theft Auto 5, one of the most classic chase scenes from one of the best flicks in history.
You know the semi chase in Terminator 2: Judgment Day? Well, here it is, painstakingly recreated nearly shot-for-shot in the GTA universe.
“It mostly took a lot of time because I wanted to try to make it exact. Yes I may have missed some small scenes but damn we worked hard on this from the actual setting up, to the directing, to the editing so please give it a look,” says creator John Chapman.
Today, the online video company announced that it had made its first original programming investment into High Maintenance, an already-existing web series that follows a neurotic pot dealer around New York City. It’s received a decent amount of popularity online, and has guest-starred celebrities like Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens and comedian Hannibal Buress. The series, which already has 13 free-to-watch episodes up on Vimeo, will get a cash injection to finance six new episodes.
These episodes will eventually be made available on Vimeo On Demand.
“We’re all huge fans of High Maintenance and couldn’t be happier to make our first original programming investment in a show that’s developed organically on Vimeo,” said Kerry Trainor, CEO, Vimeo. “Earlier this year we announced an initial $10 Million investment to license content for distribution on Vimeo On Demand from creators seeking alternatives to ad-based models and this is an exciting next step for the platform.”
Vimeo made that investment in March–$10 million to fund new content to pump into their on-demand video service. At the time, Vimeo said that it would “work with filmmakers and distributors to accelerate its investment in quality individual titles and catalogs suited to Vimeo’s unique audience,” and it’s clear that they have done so with the popular and critically-acclaimed High Maintenance.
Vimeo on-demand service is just a little over a year old, and it lets video makers sell their work and take a (0% cut of the profits–it’s pay-per-view, but in the hands of the creators. This is the first time Vimeo is putting its own money into original content for Vimeo On-Demand, however.
There’s no word on what it’ll cost to watch the new episodes of High Maintenance–but it’ll most definitely cost something. Unlike Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, and other streaming video companies getting into the original content game, Vimeo is sporting a unique model that allows people to pay (or rent) per episode, instead of one subscription price for all content.
Normally, I’d say there is no way that a cat could chuck a baseball 60 feet 6 inches–but this is not your normal, everyday cat we’re talking about here. This is Tara, the hero cat.
Viral sensation Tara, the cat that saved that little boy from a vicious dog attack, will be throwing out the first pitch next Tuesday, May 20th, at the Bakersfield Blaze game. We’re assuming that the cat will have a little bit of help from her family. Of course, it would be a much more interesting story if she didn’t.
Tara the cat became internet famous earlier this week when a video went viral showing four-year-old Jeremy Triantafilo being attacked by a neighborhood dog, and Tara coming to the rescue with a rather impressive spear tackle. The video, posted by Jeremy’s father Roger, currently boasts over ten million views.
Ridiculous? Of course it is. But it’s for a good cause. Fans that bring animal food and used toys will receive half-price admission, and the food and toys will all be donated to local animals charities.
While I’m hesitant to hand the “man’s best friend” title over to our feline companions, I will say that in this particular circumstance, man was lucky to have a cat around the house.
With nearly six million views on YouTube, a video entitled “My Cat Saved My Son” has struck viral gold. In the video, which appears to comes from CCTV footage, a dog casually approaches a young boy on a bicycle and proceeds to attack with a ferocious bite to the leg.
As the dog begins to drag the poor boy by the leg, a valiant cat comes running into frame and basically spear tackles the dog. It’s a pretty incredible video, I’m not going to lie. Check it out:
Roger Triantafilo, who posted the original video on YouTube, explains why the mother ran away from the boy after the attack (a frequently asked question from the comments).
“After checking his wounds she made sure the dog did not return for a second attempt. The owners were there also and she was bit by the dog as she tried to pin him in his yard. The owners did get control of the dog and secured him in which she immediately returned to attending to our son. I did not include that video because it was not so much about the dog but about the cats actions,” he says.
The cat’s actions, while heroic, are the subject of some skepticism.
“We all know the cat was just being a jerk and attacking the dog; that it happened to stop the attack was coincidental,” says one commenter.
Coincidence or not, there’s absolutely no denying that the cat saved the little boy from additional injury. I guess “hero” really is an appropriate title to bestow (via reddit).
Although he did sustain this pretty nasty bite wound, the boy will be fine.
The dog, however, will meet a different fate. According to Bakersfield police, the Labrador-Chow mix has been surrendered by its owners and will be euthanized at a later date.
As a member of the Volvo-owners club since 2001, I can attest to the inexplicable draw of the Swedish-made automobile. There’s just something about a Volvo, man.
No, there’s just something about this Volvo. According to the legend of the owner’s grandfather’s father’s grandchild’s grandchild child, at least, it’s haunted.
If you’re near Malmö, Sweden and have 7,500 Swedish crowns to spare, there’s a guy who really wants you to buy his 1993 Volvo 245GL. He wants you to buy it so badly that he created quite possibly the best Volvo ad in the history of Volvo.
I’m assuming that you do in fact want to be perceived as rich and cuddly, so that’s a pretty solid marketing pitch right there. I’d be neglectful if I didn’t mention that it has a new battery and radiator, as well as summer and winter tires very round rubber humps.
Who knows if this viral ploy will lead to a sale–but the viral part of the ploy is 100 percent certified. Between the Buy My Volvo (English) and original Köp Min Volvo videos, our pitchman has racked up nearly three-quarters of a million views.
Roughly a decade ago, a famous video hit the web featuring Glenn Danzig getting knocked out by the guy from the Northside Kings. If you’re reading this article, you’re probably familiar with it or have at least heard of it.
A couple years ago, the guy that punched him talked to Vice about it.
Now, Danzig is in the news because he’s suing former bandmate Jerry Only over some lame Misfits merchandise that Danzig never signed off on (they had an agreement that all merch would require the approval of both men).
Anyway, Danzig enthusiasts (yes, my dog is named after him), who see stories about him on Facebook, for example, are still being encouraged to view this classic piece of Internet nostalgia.
A lesson in how your reputation on the Internet follows you for a really long time.
It doesn’t help when Google returns images like this for a simple name search either.
The knockout video somehow manages to stay off the first page of search results, though Google does treat searchers to a video called “Glenn Danzig is an Asshole” as the sixth organic result.
Facebook has released a number of discussions from its f8 conference last week on YouTube. If you weren’t able to attend, but are interested in using Facebook to help your ecommerce business, you might want to give this one a watch.
As the video description explains:
Learn about our view on the changing ecommerce landscape, and how Facebook’s solutions can help ecommerce merchants drive sales across devices.
