ZUG.com Comedy Site Will Name the "Funniest Person in the World" ZUG.com, the world's first comedy site, has relaunched itself as a social platform for funny people, with the chance for one user each month to be named "The Funniest Person in the World," based on his or her contributions to the site each month. It's the world's first Web 2.0 site for comedy writers. Boston, MA (PRWEB) November 11, 2008 ZUG.com, the world's first comedy site, has relaunched itself as a social platform for funny people, with the chance for one user each month to be named "The Funniest Person in the World," based on his or her contributions to the site each month. "Everybody's a comedian," said ZUG.com editor-in-chief Sir John Hargrave. "But not every comedian is funny. The new ZUG.com gives everyone--comedians, office workers, the homeless--a chance to see how they rate against the Internet's funniest people." Using fun online tools at http://www.zug.com/, users can easily create content like "Caption Contests," where one user submits an unusual photo to which other users write amusing captions. Or "Comedy Challenges," a kind of user-generated list, such as "Signs You're Getting Too Fat." (The top-rated suggestion at press time: "Princess Leia keeps complaining that the chain's too tight.") As users contribute funny content, other users rate their contributions from one to five smiley faces, or "ZUGZ." As users earn ZUGZ, their ranking is continuously calculated among all ZUG.com users worldwide. The ultimate goal: to earn the most ZUGZ in a month, an honor known as "The Funniest Person in the World." "I was the Funniest Person in the World, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt," quips previous site winner Al Natanagara, referring to the entry-level prize of a ZUG T-shirt. "Themed" comedy contests on ZUG.com, however, award thousands of dollars in cash and prizes for the funniest contributions within advertiser-sponsored topics. ZUG's model is especially attractive to advertisers, since it gets users involved in creating custom content around the advertiser's product category. A manufacturer of custom signs, for instance, might start a comedy contest to come up with the silliest sign--a real-life recent example. "The ZUG model gets users engaged with the product category, creates great viral content, and drives SEO rankings," says Aunesty Janssen of Rolet.com, a recent advertiser. ZUG.com, which receives some 5 million pageviews from 1.5 million users per month, isn't just looking for stand-up comedians or professional comedy writers. To the contrary, Hargrave explains, "The majority of our visitors are people with office jobs and a lot of free time." "The site is incredibly addictive," says frequent ZUG.com contributor Bob Johnson. "Sometimes I refresh the page over and over just to watch my ZUGZ count rise. It's like the exact opposite of my stock portfolio." "This is the new face of comedy," says Hargrave. "We're out to find the funniest people in the world, then reward them with cash, prizes, and Internet fame. And by getting them to generate funny content for us, we get to go home early. Win/win." ###
|
© Copyright 1997-2012, Vocus PRW Holdings, LLC. |