Animals + Humor = Profit

Back in '07, Businessweek did a piece on successful bloggers bringing in a nice amount of money each week, probably through advertisements based on the large number of hits they receive. My favorite of the week included I Can Has Cheezburger, which I actually stumbled on in 2007 with my sister when we saw our friends posting pictures of cats with bolded internet-speak phrases. Since then, we've loved all LOLCats. I haven't seen as many truly "laugh out loud" pictures as I did when the site was growing (some people think they're funny when they're really not), but I still chuckle at some pictures. But really, I just like looking at pictures of funny animals.

Which brings me to my next point. (Wait, are these really points? I think I'm just talking about how I like pictures of fuzzy animals. Or not fuzzy.) The silliest things can become hits. Two years ago in my Intro. to Mass Media class, we looked at F U, Penguin. It's just a guy putting cute animals in their place. This all started on blogger, but by some chance, it caught on and now the guy has a book.

And there's another that I discovered recently on tumblr: Animals Being Dicks.

However, for every goldmine, there have to be hundreds of flops. A lot of it is being lucky, especially with the sites I mentioned. Sometimes it's for fun, and then sometimes it catches on by accident and lets you quit your day job. Will I ever be that lucky? I doubt it. But at least there's a chance that maybe someone out there will like an inside joke I have with a friend.