
How I Can Has Cheezburger became a web empire - jlangenauer
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/technology/internet/14burger.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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MartinCron
In a move that isn't at all shocking, the NY Times reporter didn't have much
interest in talking with me or any of the other Cheezburger Network developers
when she was in our office a few weeks ago.

If anyone is curious about the technical side of what we do and how we do it,
I'll gladly answer questions here.

Also, we're looking for software developers. We're in Seattle, and have a
strong bias for local talent, but we have a bunch of remote deveopers. Of the
dozen or so companies I've worked for, Cheezburger is hands down the best.
Srsly. Email martin@cheezburger.com if you're interested.

~~~
iamjustlooking
I'm sure from a reporter perspective it doesn't appear like there's much of a
technical side to what appears to be a wordpress blog with cats on it.

~~~
MartinCron
That's why I would expect a reporter to, when introduced to a bunch of
technical people to ask, "what? there's a technical side?"

Then we could talk about how we make systems to help the editorial team sort
through the 16,000 content submissions we get every day, or how we have a
public API so people can submit funny content from their applications.

The "wordpress blog with cats on it" is a very shallow view of the company.
There's a lot more going on than that.

~~~
fortes
_Then we could talk about how we make systems to help the editorial team sort
through the 16,000 content submissions we get every day, or how we have a
public API so people can submit funny content from their applications._

So could you talk about some of that now? I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
ssharp
Really. If you want your story to be heard, tell it. Start talking here or
start an IamA.

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mikeleeorg
I'm a little surprised that no one's caught on to the real business model
behind Cheezburger Network.

What they're doing is pretty clever. It's more than just a bunch of silly
captions under photos of cats. They're building a system that capitalizes on
Internet memes that can be presented in a blog-like fashion.[1]

That, to me, is a mark of a potentially sustainable business model. To break
it down in more detail:

a) They monitor Internet memes

b) They evaluate which ones are worthy of a trial run

c) They launch a site around it

d) They assess that site's success (using whatever metrics they've discovered
are important, such as PVs and unique visitors for advertisers)

e) They pull the plug if the trial is not successful

It's not a new business model, but it's a clever one that's obviously working.
I'm particularly impressed that they're aiming to launch a site every week,
and kill only 20% of those experiments. I wonder if that number is low.

That's why they're more than just a WordPress blog with cats on it.

[1] The similarities to a blog are probably incidental. I imagine they
basically want a way to display recent user-generated entries and allow other
users to comment on them. A blogging system naturally satisfies these
attributes. Otherwise, I don't think they necessarily need their sites to look
like blogs, per se.

~~~
MartinCron
I think a lot of people (including yourself) have caught on to the business
model. It's just that many people can't get past the WTF factor of the funny
cat site to see that there's a serious business there. Nobody is keeping what
we're doing a secret.

It's not just "Internet memes" though, it's more about finding untapped types
of crowd-source-able humor. There wasn't a popular "there, I fixed it" meme
before we launched thereifixedit.com

I haven't been keeping explicit score, but the killing 20% figure feels about
right. Our count of surviving sites has been constantly growing, we're up to
53 at the moment.

~~~
mikeleeorg
Ah yes, crowd-source-able humor! Now I'm even more impressed. 53 sites is a
lot. Do you have people that oversee the content & comments on those sites?

FYI for anyone else who is curious like I am about what those 53 sites might
be: <http://cheezburger.com/sites>

~~~
MartinCron
Yes. We have a lot of people overseeing content and comments, it's most of our
staff. Each person generally does between 4 and 6 sites, with the sites
generally posting between 1 and 6 items to the front page (featured content)
daily.

For each thing you see on any front page, there are dozens of things that
didn't make it through voting, and for each of those things on the voting
pages, there are dozens of things that weren't good enough for voting. We're
able to crowdsource the generation/submission of content as well as (some of)
the curation of content. A lot of what makes a site work is finding the right
balance between editorial vision and letting users vote on what they like.

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alttab
Amazing to hear the numbers. I'll file this one under ifart and question my
career again. I can has breakdown.

~~~
chime
Creativity comes in all flavors. Someone creates a Jump-to-Conclusion mat and
makes a million while someone spends their entire life working on elliptic
curves to improve cryptography. Get-rich-quick stories entice even the most
brilliant of the minds and we're no different. A story about some kid making
$35k/month from a stupid app for iPhone makes people wonder why they even
bother learning Clojure or spending hours improving their writing skills. The
truth is, you must ask yourself what will make you truly happy - being the
developer of a gimmick app that made money or someone who has directly
contributed to the world with their efforts.

Upon hearing the above, many have said "well, once you have lots of money, say
like the reddit guys, you can spend your time doing what you love and help the
world." No. The reddit guys WERE doing what they loved and would have done
what they're now doing regardless of the money. Sure, having money like Elon
Musk helps but then again, it may not. If you hate your career now, get the
ball rolling to change it. If you are happy with it, who cares if someone else
made millions sharing pictures of cats? I mean do you feel bad that someone in
India made $10m selling a special type of plastic sheet to farmers? Or someone
in South Africa made millions selling vuvuzelas?

If your ultimate goal is to make money, then certainly wonder if you chose the
right career. Money laundering or even investment banking might be a better
path. Otherwise, realize the money is just a serendipitous by-product of any
venture.

~~~
roel_v
"Or someone in South Africa made millions selling vuvuzelas?"

If I ever find that guy, he's in for a world of pain.

~~~
Luc
The Vuvuzela (TM) maker was once a small startup that won an entrepreneurship
competition and got help from an incubator:
[http://www.fin24.com/Companies/SAB-moves-to-protect-
vuvuzela...](http://www.fin24.com/Companies/SAB-moves-to-protect-
vuvuzela-20040519)

I have mixed emotions about this one, for sure.

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ck2
Step 1: Take content from everyone and everywhere else and put it on your own
site.

~~~
jessriedel
More like, come up with a great web-interface to allow a single, one-time idea
from an individual user (which otherwise would have been heard only by him and
his friends) to be made available to the entire internet.

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mynameishere
If the comment section on icanhascheeseburger doesn't drive you to suicide,
you're probably safe keeping that 45 in your house.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
I'd forgotten about the comments. Blocked them out, really.

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thunk
Well, that and toxoplasmosis.

------
seanalltogether
To me the cheezburger network is like the paparazzi of internet culture.
Chasing down memes and raping them in front of thousands of viewers to provide
a flash of cynical entertainment before moving on.

~~~
px
Trivializes rape a little bit, doesn't it?

