Too much viral video can make you sick. And your computer, too. CollegeHumor, Barry Diller's funny-clips compendium, has been caught infecting viewers with at least two categories of virus, Generic.dx and JS/Wonka. They're mild but annoying infections — the chlamydia and gonorrhea of the online world. One expects to find Trojans littering CollegeHumor's offices, not its website. The likely source?
The deal isn't official yet, but CollegeHumor and MTV plan to launch a TV show together. In the finished pilot, the Tumblr-popular Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld host, rolling clips between skits like the one in the clip below. Sam Reich plays College Humor cofounder Ricky Van Veen. Word has it CollegeHumor insisted on getting online distribution rights and that MTV readily complied.
What should Barry Diller do? The IAC boss is being hung, slowly, by his largest shareholder. And for good reason: although online commerce and advertising is growing, the internet conglomerate has shrunk in value from $22bn to just over $7bn over five years. Barry Diller's reputation as a canny businessman, built up over decades in the movie and TV business, is tarnished. IAC has proven completely unable to build new businesses; and the New York group has had little success with the assets it bought. Let us count the fuckups.
It's so hard to know which corporate villain to root for. John Malone, the 'Darth Vader' of the cable industry, has built up a dominant stake in Barry Diller's IAC and is putting on the squeeze with a lawsuit. But the internet conglomerate's killer queen has learned well from his evil master: Diller is turning Malone's shares against him, siphoning off outsized personal pay while he buys playthings like the College Humor kids, and generally runs Malone's investment into the ground. (Confused? Here's Duff McDonald's explanation.)
This would be the perfect tale of the gentrifying effect of Manhattan. Four kids with a shockingly puerile web site come to the big city, rent a kick-ass loft together in Tribeca and throw wild parties. After four years in New York, founder Josh Abramson (pictured center, in white), goes bourgeois. He's hired Park Avenue decorator David Howell to create a minimalist look — "but not stark," as he told the New York Observer — for his new $1.975m apartment at the Greenwich. But there's a problem with the narrative.
Amateur attention seeker and entrepreneur Jakob Lodwick may be releasing a new project soon with David Karp, the creator of blogging tool Tumblr. Lodwick recently cut ties with both his beau, Julia Allison, and Connected Ventures, the startup he founded, now controlled by IAC and best known for Vimeo and College Humor. Without Barry Diller's backing or Allison's cleavage, how will the pasty, shirtless hipster generate the buzz he's grown to expect but rarely deserves? By mocking the homeless.
IAC-owner and New Media Mogul Barry Diller went from the man who created the Fox network and greenlighted The Simpsons to the dude who owns Zwinky.com. He's still filthy rich and owns the biggest yacht ever and never needs to leave his gigantic office atop his Frank Gehry castle, but his former boss and current sorta-rival Rupert Murdoch just continues amassing power and influence and Presidents while Diller is creating and buying little funny (but sometimes hugely profitable!) websites. Does that bug him? According to a profile by the Observer's Doree Shafrir... maybe?
Why does Facebook seem to have more momentum now than MySpace? Some might tell you it's Facebook's vastly superior user interface. Oh, and that the site actually works most of the time. While they might not say so in public, MySpace executives agree. The News Corp.-owned social network is hiring for a redesign and it's being very upfront with candidates as to what it wants: a feature by feature Facebook match. Innovation be damned, News Corp. wants to catch the perceived leader. The same source also tells me News Corp. already knows who it wants for the job.
Tumblr, the cute blogging tool that recently received $750,000 in funding, has been touted as enabling unique habits not possible with other blogs. Habits that include boring one's readers more frequently throughout the day. Now Ricky Van Veen, editor of CollegeHumor, is blaming Tumblr for the same thing. Van Veen thinks Tumblr causes bloggers to post too often. He is frustrated that his friends are posting inanities not worth reading. And yet he finds himself obsessively following these trite microposts. According to Van Veen, Tumblr is the problem.
They said Barry Diller was out of his mind! And yet, according to this in-house promotional video that we've obtained, his company, IAC, has a giant Frank Gehry-designed headquarters full of young people working their internet brands like Match.com, Ask.com. It's a young company! Everyone there is in the loop! It's happening! They are an endlessly multi-product company! He has a smaller but smarter army! Also we love the part about 1:30 from the end when the guy doing payroll starts screaming at the College Humor staff too. But don't get too comfortable, staffers: "This company will change on a dime and will be able to change its strategy" at the drop of a hat, says some executive guy. Yes, that's when they take you and your once-hot young brand out back and grind you into meat.
Who was College Humor boy Jakob Lodwick thinking of in this morning's "morning photo" on his blog Obeastiality? (He takes one every morning and every evening, often topless, often in mixed company.) He's posted a quote from one "A.A.," who says "It occurred to me that possibly hundreds of people across the dashboard were thinking (for just a split second) that you were referring to them—I include myself in that number." Gagging yet? Well, take the bucket away from your face: now ain't the time for your gags. We suspect that the real object of Jakob's morning thoughts is his former girlfriend, Star Editor at Large Julia Allison. Wait, former? Oh, hadn't you heard? They're back on!
Take a gander at CollegeHumor co-founder Josh "The Boring One" Abramson's new digs over at 13th Street and 6th Avenue! 15-foot ceilings! A marble-topped kitchen island! A closet as big as the craphole you live in now! But don't be jealous; use it as inspiration! Somewhere out there is an idea that could be your "posting pictures of drunk co-eds whipping their boobs out on the Internet": you just have to go find it and then watch the cash roll in!
When I first saw CollegeHumor's original "Internet Commenters" clip, my thought was, "Brilliant — but a one-hit wonder, and an exception to the rule that Internet video sucks." Not so. Now, with an even funnier sequel out, I'm thinking that this is an idea with legs — and that CollegeHumor could succeed, where so many others have failed, with original online videos.
The adorable scamps of CollegeHumor haven't let The Man break their spirit: They're still living the life of hard-partying sophomores, even though they've got jillions of dollars and ostensibly real jobs. Sadly, some folks aren't so amused. A note from their building's manager cites complaints about liquor bottles left in the men's room, "Drunk people hanging out the window," and, the most serious charge, "Spinning around the revolving doors over and over again." Juvenile, sure, but they're simply following in the footsteps of mentor and owner Barry Diller, who once took a shit on a QVC executive's desk "as a lark." (Kidding, Mr. Diller!)
Two CollegeHumor employees meet to go over web site ideas. "IMDb, but no actors, just the movies." "So it's worse IMDb." "Yes." "No." Click through to watch.
