Comments on: Do We Laugh at this? FunnyorDie Deals with HBO

By: Belia Mcmanis

Belia Mcmanis — Fri, 13 May 2011 23:46:39 +0000

Sometimes our lives rush

By: Katheryn Arbertha

Katheryn Arbertha — Fri, 06 May 2011 07:43:24 +0000

I’ve got a brand-new internet business which is to be offering handmade animals online and I am in search of a good resourse to locate reasonable credit card processing rates that could possibly use me eventhough my business just commenced a few months ago.

By: Alexander

Alexander — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:54:36 +0000

What’s up?. Thanks a bunch for the blog. I’ve been digging around for info, but i think i’m getting lost!. Google lead me here - good for you i guess! Keep up the good work. I will be coming back over here in a few days to see if there is any more info.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:36:02 +0000

Freddy, thanks for the comment. Just to clarify, the referenced list of woes applies to corporate studio structure, not the Hollywood creative community at large and speaks to the difficulties in developing original content for digital distribution within the fortress of the studios themselves.

As for your Metacafe adventure there’s a lot packed in there about the interesting “frenemy” relationship between Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
FOD is Silicon Valley venture backed, but distinctly Hollywood. Their web development team is located not in LA, but in the Bay.
If nothing else, FunnyorDie has done a better job than most of bridging the chasm between Northern California’s technology / venture communities and Southern California’s entertainment world.

By: Freddy J. Nager

Freddy J. Nager — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:03:10 +0000

I once advised viral-video site Metacafe to develop a distinctive identity, or Hollywood would eventually leave ‘em in the dust. In Silicon Valley fashion, they responded “technology and user experience are all that matter.” And, lo, FunnyorDie, a new and relatively small UGC site, gets an HBO deal, while the established giant that is Metacafe is still seeking name recognition. I totally agree with you that Hollywood is full of “infrastructure issues, guild concerns, budget bloat, kill-your-colleague politics, bureaucratic gerrymandering, creative constipation and corporate development spam” (awesome list, Jake), but at least there’s recognition in Hollywood that creativity is important. I applaud HBO for investing in creativity, and I applaud FunnyorDie for making creative expression (and not technology) its focal point. As a marketer, I’m all too happy to see the old rule hold true: differentiate or die.