Things I Think

huffingtonpost: “It was very accurate. It kind of made us all...

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:37:45 -0700

“It was very accurate. It kind of made us all chuckle because there were things that we thought only people at CDC might get,” said Laura Gieraltowski, an expert in foodborne illnesses.

How nice for you.

‘Contagion’ Is Real, According To Scientists

This is how you become a social media douchebag in my book...

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:14:14 -0700

This is how you become a social media douchebag in my book...:

Be self-aggrandizing by calling your experiment “great” and then mock the people that react.

Chris Brogan’s: Great Twitter unfollow experiment of 2011

Here is an interesting infographic on Silicon Valley salaries....

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:10:11 -0700

Here is an interesting infographic on Silicon Valley salaries. Facebook might be the hot company but it’s still good to be at Google.

Obama’s Twitter town hall by the numbers: 100K+ tweets,...

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:31:04 -0700

Obama’s Twitter town hall by the numbers: 100K+ tweets, 65K questions, 4 biggest topics (Jobs, Budget, Taxes, Education) and more…

Groupon IPO by the Numbers (from SEC Filing)

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:44:19 -0700

- Groupon has 83.1 million subscribers as of March 31, 2011. It had 152,203 on June 30, 2009.
- The company is in 175 North American markets and 43 countries.
- In Q1 2011, Groupon earned $644.7 million in revenue, but it still wasn’t enough to make Groupon profitable. It lost $102.7 million in Q1 2011.
- Groupon spent $179.5 million on online marketing in Q1 2011. That’s huge, especially when you compare it to the $245 million Groupon spent on online marketing for all of 2010. Essentially, the company spent around $6 per Groupon offer.
- Groupon had 56,781 merchants as customers by the end of Q1 2011, up from 212 in Q2 2009.
- The company sold 28.1 million Groupons in Q1 2011, up from 116,231 in Q2 2009.
- Groupon had 7,107 employees on March 31, 2011.
- Groupon has made 13 acquisitions in the past year.
- The company’s largest shareholder isn’t CEO and founder Andrew Mason, but investor and co-founder Eric P. Lefkofsky. He owns 64,113,046 Class A shares (21.6% of the total) and 499,992 Class B shares (41.7% of the total).
- Andrew Mason owns 22,967,252 Class A shares (7.7% of the total) and owns the same amount of Class B shares as Lefkofsky: 499,992 (41.7% of the total).
- Groupon has raised $1.12 billion so far in venture funding from a $6.8 million Series A, a $30 million Series B, a $135 million Series C and a $950 Series D.
- Groupon had $208.7 million in cash and cash equivalents on March 31, 2011.
- Groupon has paid $34.8 million for its acquisitions, not including CityDeal and QPod.

Also see: Key To Success

6 Things Jesus Wants You To Know About the Rapture…(this...

Fri, 20 May 2011 16:00:48 -0700

6 Things Jesus Wants You To Know About the Rapture…(this is one of the many reasons I love working at FOD)

The back-fill ads on Funny Or Die are trying to be both relevant...

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:47:00 -0700

The back-fill ads on Funny Or Die are trying to be both relevant AND funny….

Milk = Dream Team of Angel Investors

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:24:20 -0700

Kevin Rose brings an impressive group of investors to his new mobile development lab, Milk; including Michael Arrington, Ron Conway, Tim Ferriss, Dave Morin, Philip Rosedale, Evan Williams, Shervin Pishevar, Joshua Schachter, Anthony Casalena, Ashton Kutcher, Philip Kaplan, Chris Sacca, Gary Vanyerchuk, Tony Hsieh, Chamath Palihapitiya, Matt Mullenweg, Matt Williams, Tony Conrad and Rob Hayes.

More At: TechCrunch & Milk Inc.

Fun morning around the office…we got doughnuts &...

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:37:18 -0700

Fun morning around the office…we got doughnuts & passed the NFL on Twitter.

laughingsquid: Bye Bye Apocalypse

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:14:06 -0700

laughingsquid:

Bye Bye Apocalypse

Funny Or Die received 10 Webby nominations. My mom says if we...

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:38:18 -0700

Funny Or Die received 10 Webby nominations. My mom says if we win she will buy the entire office ice cream. Go VOTE if you love ice cream!!

New Bad Religion Song. Old Bad Religion Footage. This is just a...

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:15:52 -0700

New Bad Religion Song. Old Bad Religion Footage. This is just a recipe for awesomeness…

Boop with Rose McGowan from Rose McGowan

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 07:41:06 -0700

Boop with Rose McGowan from Rose McGowan

More Brands Focusing on Branded Entertainment & Funny Or Die...

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:15:34 -0700

More Brands Focusing on Branded Entertainment & Funny Or Die is leading the way…check out the Mashable article

Pandora just reminded me of HOW MUCH I love They Might Be...

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:52:45 -0700

Pandora just reminded me of HOW MUCH I love They Might Be Giants….if you don’t know…now you know!!

StumbleUpon Hits 1 Billion Stumbles Per Month

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:49:12 -0700

After reporting hitting 800 million stumbles lasts month, StumbleUpon just announced it is hitting 1 Billion! stumbles / month (see chart below). This is explosive growth & great news for a lot of publishers including Funny Or Die. Over the last 6 months we have see traffic from SU continue to grow overtaking Facebook as a referring traffic source to the site. I spoke to some people during SXSW and they are attributing this increase to tweaks SU has made in it’s algorithm and serving it’s user with sites better personalized to their preferences and stumble history, which in turns makes users stumble more.

Whatever the reason, I am loving it! Especially after seeing the death of digg in driving traffic. Has anyone else seen similar results?

This pretty much sums up how I feel about doing board slides on...

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:30:57 -0700

This pretty much sums up how I feel about doing board slides on a Friday night….

Twitter Launches New Followers Dashboard

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:41:59 -0700

Twitter is definitely stepping up in the analytics game. Just a few short months ago they unveiled the Twitter dashboard that allows us to see new followers, unfollows :(, RTs, Favorites and @. At FOD we have used it religiously to help us optimize how, what, and when we tweet.

The updated dashboard now allows us to see our followers interests, location, engagement level, and demo info (well M/F). A little too excited to see this information. About to go down the analysis rabbit hole!!

Screen shot below

Site Redesign Gone Wrong: Digg & Gawker

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 07:41:47 -0700

2 stalwart internet companies have made one of the most critical business mistakes. They stop listening to their audience. Both Digg & Gawker recently implemented major redesign changes that as you can see from the chart below have not paid off for either.

Obviously, neither’s audiences like the redesign and have shown their displeasure by taking their views elsewhere. Should Digg & Gawker hang on to their redesign or revert back to their older designs?

Twitter’s New Homepage - First step in making Twitter more...

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:50:40 -0700

Twitter’s New Homepage - First step in making Twitter more mainstream?

Jack Dorsey returned to Twitter last week saying his first order of business was to make the microblogging site more approachable to the masses. The new homepage’s language could be the site’s first step. The old Twitter led with “Discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” The new homepage has a different pitch to prospective users: “Follow your interests: Instant updates from your friends, industry experts, favorite celebrities, and what’s happening around the world.”

Sometimes little tweaks in positioning can have the biggest impacts