My guess is FJ and Oatmeal are both getting massive traffic thanks to this little battle.
The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
51–60 of 113 posts
Re: The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's not a comic genius, he's a marketing genius. His comics are actually quite banal; everyone hates their printers, a list of reasons why makes us feel good but isn't actually funny.
um. i guess you have not read "Why Captain Higgins is my favorite parasitic worm" http://theoatmeal.com/comics/captain_higgins Still think its banal and not funny? does everyone hate parasites that can turn ants into zombies?
I'm sure 15 year old girls talk about zombie-creating parasites all the time. Everyone is bored of it ;)
Re: The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
#53Matt Iman (guy behind TheOatmeal), was co-founder & original CTO of SEOMoz and left after his side project (Mingle2) blew up in popularity and was acquired. He mentions in his departing SEOMoz blog post that the company that acquired Mingle2 wanted "to leverage my viral marketing and linkbait abilities" - back in 2007. Fun to look at this through understanding that he's a SEO guru and viral-marketing genius. Perfect…
I'm not sure I'm seeing any issue here. OK, so he was good at SEO. The fact is that he has always been very happy to have his comics republished, so long as they link back to the original site. Can't be fairer than that.
Funnyjunk didn't do that. However, he didn't take legal action. He wrote a blog, and exercized his right to free expression. Nothing about the blog was factually incorrect. The links are dead because the images have been taken down.
To be honest, he does come out looking flawless! If someone can point out what he's done wrong, I'm very curious. Certainly the letter he recieved from the lawyer is absurd... Starting from the top:
1. "FunnyJunk, LLC. ("FunnyJunk"), a competitor of TheOatmeal.com in the field of online humor". Where can you go with this? TheOatmeal isn't competing with them.
2. He took an old blog post from last year, then stated that the screenshot was "taken long ago". As is pointed out in the annotated letter, this means nothing.
3. Google cache shows that they had hundreds of images, many of them with the attribution removed.
... more points, but is it necessary?
Re: The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
#54Matt Iman (guy behind TheOatmeal), was co-founder & original CTO of SEOMoz and left after his side project (Mingle2) blew up in popularity and was acquired. He mentions in his departing SEOMoz blog post that the company that acquired Mingle2 wanted "to leverage my viral marketing and linkbait abilities" - back in 2007. Fun to look at this through understanding that he's a SEO guru and viral-marketing genius. Perfect…
I'm not sure I'm seeing any issue here. OK, so he was good at SEO. The fact is that he has always been very happy to have his comics republished, so long as they link back to the original site. Can't be fairer than that. Funnyjunk didn't do that. However, he didn't take legal action. He wrote a blog, and exercized his right to free expression. Nothing about the blog was factually incorrect. The links are dead because…
I don't think aresant was implying any malfeasance on Matt Iman's part.
Re: The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
#55Y'see, this is why The Oatmeal guy is a comic genius. He understands that while "drawing of your mom seducing a bear" is funny, "drawing of your mom seducing a kodiak bear" is hilarious.
He's not a comic genius, he's a marketing genius. His comics are actually quite banal; everyone hates their printers, a list of reasons why makes us feel good but isn't actually funny.
I guess everyone's sense of humor is different. Personally, I found the "literally" comic confronting, but I was rolling on the floor laughing at the gay-roller image... IMO, the guy is a comic genius :-)
Re: The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
#56Matt Iman (guy behind TheOatmeal), was co-founder & original CTO of SEOMoz and left after his side project (Mingle2) blew up in popularity and was acquired. He mentions in his departing SEOMoz blog post that the company that acquired Mingle2 wanted "to leverage my viral marketing and linkbait abilities" - back in 2007. Fun to look at this through understanding that he's a SEO guru and viral-marketing genius. Perfect…
I'm not sure I'm seeing any issue here. OK, so he was good at SEO. The fact is that he has always been very happy to have his comics republished, so long as they link back to the original site. Can't be fairer than that. Funnyjunk didn't do that. However, he didn't take legal action. He wrote a blog, and exercized his right to free expression. Nothing about the blog was factually incorrect. The links are dead because…
Funnyjunk appears to be a comedy site with no sense of humour. Next thing you know someone might start a rolling TV news channel with no knowledge of current affairs, named after some kind of wild dog, and then where would we be? Although, to be fair, that could never happen, as nobody would be stupid enough to watch it.
Re: The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
#57Is there any chance that FunnyJunk has played the Oatmeal for promotional purposes here?
Speaking for myself, I have no more desire to go to funnyjunk than I did before this mess started.
Re: The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's always a chance, but if so they're very poor marketers. This is the modern world - there IS such a thing as bad publicity. They just got a mountain of it, and The Oatmeal came out smelling like roses. And raised what, $40k for charity in a few hours?
No. $50k. AND RISING.
$60k :D
Re: The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
#59Is there any chance that FunnyJunk has played the Oatmeal for promotional purposes here?
Maybe. The problem is that a year ago when this first came up the admin(s) resorted to homophobic name-calling. This doesn't give them much credit in the image control department.
Re: The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I'm seeing any issue here. OK, so he was good at SEO. The fact is that he has always been very happy to have his comics republished, so long as they link back to the original site. Can't be fairer than that. Funnyjunk didn't do that. However, he didn't take legal action. He wrote a blog, and exercized his right to free expression. Nothing about the blog was factually incorrect. The links are dead because…
I don't think aresant was implying any malfeasance on Matt Iman's part.
Yah not implying anything negative.
I am just in awe of how well this response was executed and learning from it.