icanhascheezeberger - Don't you just hate it!

[RobW]

This site has caused some disagreement in our house. My wife thinks it really funny and I thik it is totally dumb! Take a look yourself and tell me if you don't agree that it;s dreadful... http://icanhascheezburger.com/

However, it can't be all that dumb as it's just been sold for $2million. Perhaps I'm the one who's dumb!?

It's a site that simply published user's pics of cats with "funny" captions.

There's a Wikipedia article... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icanhascheezburger.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icanhascheezburger.com)

And a You-Tube presentation...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mpLAwjxTjaE

So - while Matthew is thinking about revenue from websites - what's the moral here? This is what I think:

1) Pics of cute animals with captions is not new. However, this site does not require fancy software skills like using Photoshop as in the past. Photos do not need to be manipulated. It's fairly easy to put a caption on a photo. And they have made it even easier now with a simple on-line facility. This guarantees maximum participation.

2) Mainstream - not cruel, offensive or sexual - so even your kids can participate - reliable, trustworthy, constent - you know whet you are getting. Just like McDonalds. There is "Quality" control.

3) The concept of the LOL cat creates an in-group, a community, but one that is easy to join. Lolyers have a private terminology and language - but not technically difficult

4) They have responded to demand by adding facilities: RSS feed; Mobile phone feed; Widgets; Forms for adding your own caption.

5) Promotes interaction - voting forms and re-captioning.

6) Branching out into others areas - dogs and other animals; pics of things going wrong - people falling over etc (LCD humour) - celebs etc. But it's still a simple to use site the cat pics remain the most important feature - nothing detracts from that. While they have developed the site they haven't branched too far - captioned pics is their main job

7) Social bookmaking and widgets mean that the name and pics spread everywhere - increasing hits - making advertising viable.

[James]

Rob, you make some good points there.

I think this website is awful, but this sort of thing has been popular as long as the world wide web has been in existence. I would rather do something constructive with my time than look at this, but whatever floats people's boats I suppose.

Is it worth $2million? YES - in fact I say it is worth MUCH MORE. It gets 1,500,000 visitors per day, and like you say, that makes advertising viable.

I also reckon the type of person that enjoys this kind of site is easily distracted with adverts like "pimp myspace" and "talking smileys" etc. I bet the click through rate is quite good.

[Tom]

Alas, I fear Rob and James are both right. Not wishing to be accused of racism, I recall the great HL Mencken's observation that “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”