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CollegeHumor shuts down

washingtonpost.com

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Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#111

Post by tracker1 »

echelon wrote: post #24

CollegeHumor is blaming this on Facebook for faking viewership numbers. This isn't the first time Facebook killed culture, and it won't be the last. We really need to de-platform or find a way Facebook can't steal value.

Even then, it's not like they've been doing that well on YouTube... I mean, you can only do the same tired millennial jokes so many times, as much as I like bashing millennial culture, it's tired and played out.

Aside: If Google Was a Guy series is one of the funniest things online.

A lot of their efforts just don't land very well. Compare this to say RoosterTeeth (Red vs. Blue, RWBY and others) has done very well in terms of adapting overall, including a couple movie releases (not huge, but out there).

Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#112

Post by chasd00 »

echelon wrote: post #34
yoz-y wrote: post #33

Why does the article start with a false premise that "internet used to be fun" and "bygone era". Come on, if you don't want to follow Twitter drama just go to some other place. Ugh.

It's not a false premise for many of us. I miss the indie internet, before big corps and big tech started taking over. I miss IRC and forums and personal websites. I miss the time when Digg was new and hadn't taken over, and memes weren't the most upvoted content. When websites weren't all Javascript and Google wasn't Yahoo. MySpace and LiveJournal and Xanga were never as sterile as Facebook and Instagram. The intern…

I was on a neighborhood association board in an arts/music community. Whenever we talked about a new business coming there was a core group that constantly complained about how they wanted the neighborhood to go back to the way it was. After a while, I realized what they really wanted was for their lives to go back to the way it was. So much of their identity was attached to the neighborhood that any change was an attack on them personally. I feel the Internet is that way for many.

Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#113

Post by shadowgovt »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #79
synlatexc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB's measure of views was dubious (3 seconds, even if the audio was off). So the #s looked great for them, but in reality the majority of views were just glimpses as people scrolled through their news feed.

I don't understand why publishers moved everything wholesale onto Facebook without doing some research Why not put up a few videos and compare ad revenue? When it didn't add up they could just move back...

That would have been the shrewd business move, and a sufficiently callous read of the entire situation can conclude "It's CH's fault for making a bad gamble without due diligence. Even a popular, publicly-traded company can run a scam or have a screw-up; history has examples."

I doubt most people agree with that read though.

Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#114

Post by jedberg »

geddy wrote: post #100
jedberg wrote: post #92

Presumably Sam now owns the rights to all the content. He could shop it around to Netflix/Hulu/Amazon. I’ll bet one of them would pick it up and maybe even give him a budget to hire some of the writers back and make new content again.

Putting it all behind yet another walled garden? Before you know it, 90% of the internet will be gated behind paywalls or signups.

Seems like a better business model than ads. And Netflix is worldwide. So really it’s a question of do you want to pay for the content with money or with your personal data.

Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#115

Post by shadowgovt »

geddy wrote: post #100
jedberg wrote: post #92

Presumably Sam now owns the rights to all the content. He could shop it around to Netflix/Hulu/Amazon. I’ll bet one of them would pick it up and maybe even give him a budget to hire some of the writers back and make new content again.

Putting it all behind yet another walled garden? Before you know it, 90% of the internet will be gated behind paywalls or signups.

The previous business model was ad-revenue supported. That business model screwed them.

It's up to the new owner, but I don't expect him to take that risk a second time if the risk model for a better walled garden looks lower.

Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#116

Post by slg »

ceejayoz wrote: post #73
riffraff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what I don't get is, if they saw a high number of views on FB with no actual revenue, why didn't they revert to their previous behavior of just sharing links?

Some of the revenue will have been CH directly selling ads (sponsorships, product placement, etc.) based on those inflated viewership counts.

Also when these companies are selling ads instead of relying on native ads, some of the moves are made in anticipation of future revenue rather than based off current revenue numbers. It is just like a startup that touts active users over any revenue numbers. Once you have people's attention, monetization was generally assumed. A company might therefore move video to Facebook as soon as they consistently see that Facebook videos get 10x the viewership numbers compared to videos on their own site only to later realize that inflated viewership number was wrong.

Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#117

Post by redisman »

badloginagain wrote: post #95
Waterluvian wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow. How is that not "shutting down"? It's contracted to life support in order to empty the existing pipeline to minimize losses. Maybe this is a Ship of Theseus kind of thing. They get rid of almost all employees, empty the pipeline, and then retool. What's left of College Humor?

I take "shut down" as an immediate stop to all services. Domain doesn't resolve, etc.

I'd imagine just keeping the videos on YouTube still brings some 6 figures per year of income to someone so no point in deleting those.

Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#118

Post by pfranz »

rchaud wrote: post #53
echelon wrote: post #24

CollegeHumor is blaming this on Facebook for faking viewership numbers. This isn't the first time Facebook killed culture, and it won't be the last. We really need to de-platform or find a way Facebook can't steal value.

Platform giveth, platform taketh away. There used to be a time where you actually had to go to collegehumor.com to watch the videos. Once everyone turned into sharecroppers on FB, Youtube or whatever, this was the risk they took.

Eh. I think that's a bit of oversimplification. I work in computer graphics. All of the "old school" companies (been around for 30+ years; Pixar, Blue Sky, DreamWorks) wrote their own renderer/compositor and other tools because they had to. Today most of those companies have shed (or spun off) most all of their proprietary core software. A very few companies (Sony and Disney) have developed newer generations of rendering software--but both of those have been in business for 20 years.

I was never privy to the numbers, but I know carrying the salaries is a huge burden. As a user, proprietary software will often lag off the shelf features by many years because the teams are smaller and they're focusing on things off-the-shelf doesn't do. That's assuming it's well managed.

On the user side of video content: I'm not the biggest fan of YouTube, but bespoke websites can often lack features that keep me from sharing content (wont work on phone, preroll gets stuck, can't link to timestamp). SNL used to only host clips on NBC.com which I could never get to work. They started serving them on Hulu, which was only slightly better. YouTube has been significantly better.

The focus is always spending time/money on the unique thing your company can provide. In addition, like you're saying, be aware of owning as much as possible of your stack--but spreading yourself too thin or trying to run your business the same way you did 10 years ago can bankrupt you, too.

Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#119

Post by shadowgovt »

echelon wrote: post #34
yoz-y wrote: post #33

Why does the article start with a false premise that "internet used to be fun" and "bygone era". Come on, if you don't want to follow Twitter drama just go to some other place. Ugh.

It's not a false premise for many of us. I miss the indie internet, before big corps and big tech started taking over. I miss IRC and forums and personal websites. I miss the time when Digg was new and hadn't taken over, and memes weren't the most upvoted content. When websites weren't all Javascript and Google wasn't Yahoo. MySpace and LiveJournal and Xanga were never as sterile as Facebook and Instagram. The intern…

I have to be honest; I think a lot of this rhetoric (not just from this poster, but in general) smells like "I miss being in charge of a wonky system that was hard for people who didn't specialize in understanding it to use."

IRC didn't go anywhere. LiveJournal is still there. JavaScript-free pages still exist. What has changed is the network of users has found them wanting and left those spaces ghost towns because they don't feel as good to use, or they're too complicated, or they haven't received any UX love beyond "Bare minimum viable product."

I don't miss that. I don't miss a system that excludes users.

Re: CollegeHumor shuts down

#120

Post by redisman »

rchaud wrote: post #53
echelon wrote: post #24

CollegeHumor is blaming this on Facebook for faking viewership numbers. This isn't the first time Facebook killed culture, and it won't be the last. We really need to de-platform or find a way Facebook can't steal value.

Platform giveth, platform taketh away. There used to be a time where you actually had to go to collegehumor.com to watch the videos. Once everyone turned into sharecroppers on FB, Youtube or whatever, this was the risk they took.

I worked developing Facebook Games for a little bit. Don't build your business on (Facebooks) platforms and their currently promised functionality because it will completely change in the next 6-18 months. As in a 100-1000x difference in exposure to players.
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