Exclusive interview with Jay Agrawal, owner of the ‘Funniest site on the net’ – uberhumor.com
Jay Agrawal is the owner of uberHumor.com, proclaimed to be the “Funniest Site on the Net”, and he sat down to talk about his successful humor website.
#1 photo on uberHumor isn’t funny, but rather a “moving” pic of Pit Bull who misses his master in Afghanistan, confirms uberHumor owner Jay Agrawal
BRANDON JONES: Thanks again for making time for me and let me begin by having you explain how uberHumor began?
JAY AGRAWAL: I used to be an avid user of Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, the social media sites and we observed that the images were the most shared, most commented on…not videos and we wanted a site dedicated to just pictures. It just grew from there.
BBJ: Now uberHumor is huge.
AGRAWAL: We’re doing pretty well.
BBJ: (According to Alexa rankings) You are #50 in Laos! How does that even happen?
AGRAWAL: I have no idea. We joked for a while when we were #1 in Luxemburg that the motto should be “Funniest Site in Luxemburg”.
Sometimes, sites like this (Alexa) are not accurate. It’s just a sampling and a small country may have false elevating stats.
BBJ: So, let’s talk about copyright…the whole SOPA thing. Any worries?
AGRAWAL: Not really. New stuff is coming from users and when we are contacted we will take it down, give credit. The (SOPA Act) effects more to videos but if you take it from YouTube, not the uploader, YouTube monitors the copyright. Most videos (on uberhumor) are generic…a dog or a cat.
BBJ: One of the big features on uberHumor is the “Epicness” – Morning Epicness, Afternoon Epicness…how did these come into being?
AGRAWAL: From other sites…there are so many pictures, there was no way to do a single post on everyone. We had to come up with a way to post all together…make it easy to see in a big chunk and something (for the users) to look forward to.
BBJ: Do you get a lot of hate mail?
AGRAWAL: We try to stay away from politics as much as possible.
Jabs at “Twilight” are like ‘beating a dead horse’
BBJ: What about sensitive fans, say “Twilight” fans?
AGRAWAL: Actually it’s kinda like beating a dead horse. (Referring to the endless “Twilight” jokes such: ‘Still more Expressive than Kristen Stewart’ or ‘Still a Better Love Story than Twilight’ Demotivational Posters) It’s an easy target.
Yes, there’s a lot of Justin Bieber, or recently, Chris Brown and a ton of Batman, some gets risque.
BBJ: Any more virulent fans than another?
AGRAWAL: Never get real complaints…just make fun, so you may get ‘He’s just a kid, leave him alone’ in the comments, but nothing back and forth.
BBJ: You have, what…like 250,000 Facebook likes, a huge following. Any words of advice for smaller sites, bloggers?
AGRAWAL: Promote using the social networks. One, we grew from Digg, Reddit, but you need to understand how to. Second, add as many social media buttons as possible without being obnoxious.
Promote without spamming those sites.
BBJ: How do you promote a ‘photo only website’?
AGRAWAL: Good question. We want to capture someone just browsing. How do we get users attention? How do you get the ADHD person to the site? Previous and next buttons help once you are there, makes it easy to capture an audience.
You can go there and get the feel in five or ten minutes or spend hours there. It was designed for the bored office worker and that’s a big part of the audience.
BBJ: So what’s the #1 post, pic of all-time?
AGRAWAL: Soldier talks to his dog with Skype from Afghanistan and his mom sends a photo of the Pit Bull still sitting there. An intense photo, but not funny. It was moving, spread the most and had the most likes.
We do get complaints on a serious photo like a soldier greeting his daughter, it’s moving but people complain because they think we are poking fun or mocking them.
I just can’t resist posting photos if I feel they are moving.
BBJ: Wow, that’s a great story. (see it here)
You have such an amalgam of Demotivational Posters, Fail Photos…do you see the Google traffic spiking and dropping due to all the Google algorithm changes?
AGRAWAL: Definitely.
Pics with little text do very well, but there is a lot of fluctuation. We feel lucky to be ranked #1 with ‘Funny pics’ or ‘Funny photos’.
BBJ: Well, I don’t think it’s luck. It’s a great site, a great business model and I wish you well.
Check out uberHumor.com: Funny pictures, Demotivational Posters, Fail photos or more.