Archive for August 22nd, 2008
The History of I Can Has Cheezburger
Leave it to Gnomedex to serve up a fascinating look at the most popular internet meme ever created: the ubiquitous and gut-busting LOLCat world of I Can Has Cheezburger.
How does one build an empire on pictures of cats with silly, misspelled captions?
As most fans of the Internet now know, I Can Has Cheezburger has become one of the most popular sites online. Its daily collection of LOLCats is the source of endless humor, and you can be pretty sure that someone in your office is reading the site and chuckling to themselves right now.
But how did it happen?
At the Gnomedex conference here Friday, I Can Has Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh talked about the genesis of the site, and some of the milestones it has gone through as it has become not only a household name but the vanguard–if not the originator–of one of the most popular memes ever to hit cyberspace.
The popularity of LOLcats officially began on January 11, 2007, when the notorious cheezburger-captioned cat was discovered by Eric Nakagam and Kari Unebasami and the domain name was registered:
On that day, Huh said, the original founders of I Can Has Cheezburger, Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami, found a LOLCat with a now-famous grey fluffy cat meowing over the words, “I Can Has Cheezburger?”
For whatever reason, it struck a chord, and immediately, the two registered icanhascheezburger.com and started their site.
And the rest, as they say, is history…’100 million page views a month’ kind of history.
As a result, I Can Has Cheezburger now has six sister sites. There’s Pundit Kitchen and GraphJam, which focus on politics and graphs; I Has a Hot Dog, about dogs; Totally Looks Like, an entertainment-oriented site; Fail Blog, which I Can Has Cheezburger bought and which pokes fun at people’s screw-ups; and Engrish Funny, a site with photos of signs mangling English.
Now, the main site is approaching 100 million page views a month and Huh said he thinks it will top a billion page views in 2008.
All told, it has more than 800,000 LOLCats in its database and now, an I Can Has Cheezburger book is in the works. It will come out in October.
Tags: Culture | Seattle | conference | Gnomedex | internet | history | Web | Humour | Funny | meme | lolcat | icanhascheezburger | ben huh | I Can Has Cheezburger
IMF Hires PR Companies To Spread Its Global Gospel of Goodwill
If there’s any international organization that is in dire need of some help in the Public Relations department, it has to be the IMF.
But will these external PR firms be able to spin the IMF’s message into a truly global gospel of goodwill?
The International Monetary Fund has hired two big-name PR agencies to help spread the fund’s message throughout the developing world, a move that also comes as it seeks to buff up its image.
Spokesman Masood Ahmed said the IMF awarded one-year contracts to Hill & Knowlton to take on the fund’s communications in the Middle East and Asia, and Amo/Euro RSCG to cover Africa and Latin America.
Paris-based Euro RSCG managed public relations for Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance, as he campaigned to become head of the IMF last year following the unexpected resignation of former IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato.
Ahmed said the two contracts combined are worth between $1.5 million and $2 million and comes as the IMF is trying to cut costs by outsourcing work.
The IMF has sought $100 million in savings a year amid falling income, which has been sharply cut because fewer countries are requesting its loans. It has also offered staff buyouts to shed about 380 jobs.
The IMF has struggled to repair its reputation in many developing countries, including in Asia where its image is still tarnished 10 years after the region’s financial crisis.
Ahmed said it was more cost-effective to hire private-sector PR agencies who already have networks in place than for the IMF to expand its operations.
Tags: Public Relations | outsourcing | bank | PR | World | money | company | lending | finance | imf | culturite | Tech & Biz
Quebec Blueberry Heist the Largest Police Have Seen
Ain’t nothing like stealing a literal tonne of fruit in the middle of the night…oh the delicious spoils of criminality!
And one has to wonder what the previous record was for “largest blueberry theft” in Quebec?
Quebec police are searching for thieves who stole more than 900 kilograms of wild, handpicked blueberries from a merchant in the Saguenay last week.
The fruit — stolen in the middle of the night from La Doré — was worth more than $2,500, and is believed to be the largest blueberry theft on record in the province.
Police have no idea how the thieves got away with 83 flats of berries, but they believe the suspects used a large vehicle such as a pickup truck.
Brilliant deduction, Watson! But does this happen often you might wonder? Why it most certainly does, my dear Mr. Holmes!
The thieves must have a buyer lined up because the fruit is perishable, said Roger Ouellet, a spokesman for the Sureté du Québec.
Blueberries are reported stolen every year, but never in this quantity, Ouellet said.
Tags: Quebec | police | fruit | Stolen | Strange | québec | thieves | SAGUENAY | BLUEBERRY | Heist | berries | culturite
China Blocks Access to iTunes Store
China has blocked access to the entire iTunes store, apparently, because of one controversial album: Songs for Tibet.This is further evidence (as if any were needed), that any suggestion of ‘free speech’ in China is simply an illusion.
The ‘art of peace‘? How about the art of censorship?
China’s authorities have blocked access to all eight million or so songs in the iTunes music store, apparently because one album — Songs for Tibet — doesn’t sit well with them.
Songs on the album include criticism of the same so-called “great firewall of China” that now prevents it from being purchased from iTunes in China.
“We issued a release saying that over 40 (Olympic) athletes downloaded the album in an act of solidarity, and that’s what triggered it,” Michael Wohl, executive director of the Art of Peace Foundation, which released the compilation, told the Associated Press. “Then everything got blocked.”
But there was reason to block the site because those athletes were gettin’ all revolutionary and subversive!
Although Apple does not operate a localized version of the iTunes music store in China, users with accounts at iTunes stores based in other countries, including the athletes Wohl mentions above, were able to purchase the album in China before the block was put into place. According to the Guardian, the Chinese government employs an estimated 30,000 people to block access to online material it finds objectionable.
Several well-known artists participated in the album (iTunes link), including Alanis Morissette, Garbage, Imogen Heap, Moby, Sting, Suzanne Vega, Underworld and others. It also includes a 15-minute talk by exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama. Funds raised through the album’s sale go to supporting “peace initiatives and Tibetan cultural preservation projects important to the Dalai Lama,” according to the album’s iTunes description.
And, incidentally, the album was the top selling rock album in the world at the beginning of August. Not bad for the little record that shut down iTunes in China…
Tags: China | Culture | Music | protest | internet | itunes | MP3 | block | tibet | store | songs | access | culturite | Beijing 2008 | bg08
‘Hustle & Flow’ Director Creates New Web Series
Craig Brewer, the director of Hustle & Flow, is set to take on the internet with a new pseudo-doc, web-only music series that will focus on the lives of “real-life local musicians” in Memphis, Tennessee.
$5 Cover, which is being produced by MTV films, could open up an interesting niche in web programming, if it is able to deliver compelling stories in a condensed webisodic format. I’m still curious, however, about the potential audience for this kind of series: is it infinitely larger — or necessarily smaller — because it is being distributed exclusively on the internet?
Craig Brewer isn’t the first Hollywood name to jump into the web series game, but his pitch is one of the freshest. Brewer directed the indie hit Hustle & Flow, and his web series seems like it will capture some of the same sensibilities.
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Brewer is creating $5 Cover as a web series for MTV Films. Set in Memphis Tenn., the series stars real-life local musicians basically playing versions of themselves. Dialog will be improvised around Brewer’s ideas taken from the musicians’ real-life experience, and each episode will feature a music performance.
$5 Cover will have 15 eight-minute episodes and will reportedly cost just $350,000 to produce. MTV will host a social-networking component that will include interactive maps to help make Memphis its own character. The idea is to then take $5 Cover to other music scenes in different cities across the country.
In a time when people are either creating sci-fi series, or thrillers that are more style than substance, it’s refreshing to see someone try something new. If done well, $5 Cover is almost a bridge between old and new media. It may have MTV, a Hollywood director and a relatively large budget for a web series — but it promises to have a soul with real locations, real music and real people.
Tags: Culture | Music | TV | Entertainment | Memphis | MTV | internet | Media | movie | television | United States | Web | films | Series | Site | Director | musicians | craig | Brewer | Social Network | culturite | Webisode | $5 cover | hustle & flow
Update: Malaysia OK’s Avril Lavigne Concert
UPDATE | Aug. 25 – It seems that Malaysian officials have come to their senses and agreed to allow Avril Lavigne’s scheduled concert in Kuala Lumpur to go ahead. After all, it’s not like she had any plans to cancel it, despite the threat of being banned from performing.
Malaysian officials have changed their minds and will permit Canadian pop star Avril Lavigne to perform a concert in Kuala Lumpur on Friday.
Earlier this month, the country’s Arts, Culture and Heritage Ministry labelled Lavigne’s show unsuitable, especially since it is scheduled to take place two days before Malaysia’s independence day celebrations.
The youth wing of a fundamentalist opposition party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic party, had complained the punk-pop performer was “too sexy” for the conservative Asian nation.
On the weekend, however, the cultural officials announced they’d reversed their decision.
Muzahet Masruri, secretary general of the ministry, said on Saturday that after talking with the concert organizers, they decided Lavigne could perform.
He declined to give a specific reason, but said authorities were told the concert organizers had sold thousands of tickets and that if the concert were cancelled, it could hurt tourism.
PREVIOUSLY – Aug. 22 – Don’t believe the hype? It seems Avril has no plans to cancel her upcoming concert in Malaysia, despite previous suggestions that she was to be banned from performing for being “too sexy”.
It seems Avril Lavigne will sing in Malaysia after all.
Reports the show had been cancelled are untrue, Lavigne’s manager, Terry McBride, said Thursday.
“We’re going ahead with the concert,” McBride said from Vancouver. “I think the media has made a whole lot of nonsense out of absolutely nothing and has gone on speculation and gossip.”
Lavigne has a large Asian fan base and will be “respectful to the culture,” he said.
But McBride refused to say whether the punk princess will change her style of dress or set list to please Malaysian officials.
Reports from the region earlier this week said that Malaysia’s Arts, Culture and Heritage Ministry refused to permit the Aug. 29 show in Kuala Lumpur because it was “too sexy.”
Malaysia requires all performers to wear clothes without obscene or drug-related images and be covered from the chest to the knees.
Lavigne’s concert plans drew opposition from hardline Islamists.
But Lavigne gave an interview with MTV on Thursday saying she plans toput on a good show.
“I’ve already sold 10,000 tickets there, so I will be going to put on a concert for the fans,” Lavigne said.
Tags: Culture | Music | Concert | Malaysia | ban | sexy | MALAYSIAN | Singer | pop | Kuala Lumpur | avril | lavigne
