This is an outtake from the special:

So, was Louis C.K. able to make his experiment a success or did the dreaded online pirates swoop in and steal the day?

Judging by Louis C.K’s statement to his fans concerning the sales of the special, the experiment was mostly successful.

“The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.”

Judging by the statement, it sounds like he’s pleased with the results up to this point. It is interesting to note he would have made more money simply releasing his special the traditional way. Making his special DRM-free does leave his product more susceptible to pirating, so does Louis C.K. have any worries from that aspect? On the purchase page, he makes a statement to those who plan to torrent the video:

To those who might wish to “torrent” this video: look, I don’t really get the whole “torrent” thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge either way. But I’d just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without “corporate” restrictions.

Sincerely,
Louis C.K.

I’ve been venturing to various torrent sites to see how the response has been, or if there is an actual torrent up for the special. I have found a couple, and there was interesting conversation unfolding on one of them. Users were arguing to have the torrent taken down from the site to support Louis C.K, while others dropped in to say they paid their $5 and were trying to get others to do the same.

“dude… read this (referencing Louis C.K.’s note to torrenters).. and take this torrent down.. you didnt put this up to make people buy it… seriously, lets not fool ourselves.. take it down.. someones trying to do the right thing, and you are stabbing them in the back”

“seriously though people; buy this thing, even if you can get it for free — if Louis can actually generate a profit from this it will encourage other comedians to do the same and it means they won’t have to go through HBO or Comedy Central to do their specials and in the end we will end up getting more frequent releases at cheaper prices…c’mon folks, it’s only $5!”

“If this torrent was not here , i would have (no) idea that he was doing this deal. We all love our torrents and he knew that it would end up here. Thanks for this torrent am 200% behind you posting it here. I paid my money because of this torrent and for all those who moan its slow , cant you wait an extra 20mins? stop being greedy.”

The support for Louis C.K’s distribution model and the back-and-forth argument over the torrent being available is unlike anything I’ve seen on a torrent site. It goes to show that while people who do pirate material are stealing, they are willing to pay if they aren’t feeling ripped off.

To help make a push for the video, Louis C.K. conducted a reddit interview which yielded some interesting comments from the comedian. In particular, he talks about how this experiment has been all about learning.

Professionally, I’m learning right this minute, a HUGE amount with this web experiment. this live at the beacon thing (available at httlp://www.louisck.com for 5 bucks) is like that thing in the movie “Twisiter” where they send a bunch of little data collecting balls up into a tornado and just download the lovely results. The whole things has been like that. From the moment it went online and i saw the result of every decision i made.

It’s interesting to discover he has so little knowledge of torrenting, online distribution, when this is one of the most genius ideas I’ve seen in quite awhile. It goes to show if you treat people with respect, offer them a quality product at a reasonable price, and don’t handcuff them with restrictions, they’ll respond positively. I’ve bought the special, and if you want to laugh and be amazed for a hour or so then it’s definitely worth the $5.

And what better way to wind-down the work day than with a selection of some of the day’s most entertaining tweets. Today we have tweets about Rod Blagojevich, Charles Bronson, Jay Cutler, and Pearl Harbor.

Enjoy!

View more daily viral video round-ups here.

Early Christmas present for Francis

MythBusters Cannonball Experiment Gone Wrong

“Sit down and shut up” from 70 different movies.

Umm… what just happened?

Zombie transformation

The awful teaser trailer for “The Three Stooges”

2-year old can flow with the best of ‘em

This was the advice given by Jordan Cooper, who was speaking during the Blogging with Humor Workshop at the Blogworld Expo. WebProNews’ Chris Crum sat in on the session and was able to pull out some interesting nuggets of information that could help your site get more shares, which ultimately lead to more return visitors.

Cooper, who teaches comedy classes at the Louisville Improv in Louisville Kentucky, stated “Everyone can be funny… you don’t have to be hilarious. Just fucking do it”. By this he means, you shouldn’t have to worry if anyone will be offended by you adding a little humor to your site. He goes on to say that probably 98% of people will retweet it and you’ll get new readers that you wouldn’t have necessarily seen your content. But, if you have to be “appropriate” the key is just be staying relevant to your audience, and it doesn’t have to be offensive.

Cooper went on to say, “Don’t think you have to write vibrator jokes to get retweets.” If your’re writing jokes for PHP programmers you can’t be concerned if non-programmers get it, as long as your audience finds it funny.

Practice is something that was stressed while discussing adding humor to your site, Cooper said, “Keep writing funny articles over and over and over again. You don’t have to publish all of them, but you’ll get better if you keep practicing it. Just keep thinking of all the ideas in your industry that you could do”.

Below is a video where Jordan talks about his session, how to be humorous, and how you can apply that to your site:

For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.

He has also compared HubPages content strategy to that of Google’s own YouTube, questioning why they were treated so differently. Interestingly enough, between the initial U.S. launch of the Panda update and the global launch, a Googler wrote a guest post on the HubPages blog talking about how to write quality content for AdSense.

The video, which was uploaded by Paul Michael Willis, carries the following description:

Parody cartoon of Google Panda Algorithm attack on online content farm writers to shut them down and improve for Online retailers and Advertisers.

Here is its companion piece at HubPages.

Thanks to YouTube’s suggestions, this other animated video about the Panda update was also brought to my attention. This one is slightly more amusing, though that’s mostly due to the use of robot voice to convey sexual arousal (ok, and the fact that sexual arousal even enters the equation in a video about the Google Panda update). The description on this one, uploaded by YouTube user Jmgrp, says:

Google’s recent Farmer update slammed down content farms like e-how, Demand Media, and eZine Articles. Of these many farmer boys, one goes to Google to meet in a therapeutic setting. Google SEO answers the many questions on the Farmer Update to the Google algorithm. This is a spoof video, people. A spoof. Any simularity to content real or imagined is just that, imagined. Not real. Repetitive. Farmer update, farmer update. Farmer update.

This one was uploaded in early March. I believe this is back before the “Panda” name was revealed, and som were referring to the update as the “Farmer” update, in relation to its dealing with content farms.

I don’t expect that you’ll see these videos get the acclaim of the Next Media Animation videos, but I don find it fascinating that people would actually take the time to create animated spoof videos about a Google algorithm update.

The site, which went live this morning, is set up in an interesting way. Each day three video clips will be posted and removed in 24 hours. Three new clips will then appear. This carousel approach prevents binging on clips at all one time, and promotes the return of fans daily to see something new.

Today, the three inaugural clips are “The Fattest Man in the World” from Johnny Carson in 1981, “Do the Horse Know They’re Racing” from a 1998 HBO special, and “No Room in the Newspaper” from Carson in 1990.

Tomorrow’s clips will be all about horses, with “A Horse Shaped Like a Hammock,” “Horse Rocket Power,” and “A Horse Named Crazy Glue.”

On the site, Seinfeld says that the point of this is to hopefully encourage young kids interested in comedy to get in on the “silliness.”

When I was ten years old, I started watching stand up comedians on TV. I fell in love with them and I’m just as fascinated with stand up comedy today. When I started doing TV, I saved every appearance on every show I did. I thought it might be fun to go through all of it and pick out three bits each day that still amuse me for some reason or another. I’ve also included stuff I’m doing now, and I’ll be adding new stuff as I go. Somewhere out there are ten year olds just waiting to get hooked on this strange pursuit. This is for them. I’m just hoping somehow it will keep this silliness going.

Although there are many clips of Seinfeld on YouTube, many are of terrible quality. Plus I’m sure he has some clips in his personal archive that haven’t found their way on the internet yet.

This isn’t the only internet comedy news of the week – on Wednesday Pandora announced it was adding 10,000 clips from over 700 comedians to it’s recommendation engine.

Those of you familiar with the two bands will get the joke. Those of you who aren’t, don’t feel left out – the joke sucks.

But in all seriousness, Pandora’s like-recommendation engine has kept many a listener from recycling all the old stuff that they’re comfortable with. And now, Pandora is announcing that they are adding comedy to their personalized channel options.

Now available for your listening pleasure are over 10,000 clips from more than 700 comedians – with more being added as we speak. Adding comedy to the personalized channel mix had to be a long, but sometimes enjoyable process for the folks at Pandora. Here’s what they have to say about it on the Pandora blog:

Adding comedians to the mix has been one of the top requests from our listeners, so we’ve taken the same approach to comedy as we have to music: carefully and deliberately analyzing comedic “bits” across a very large number of attributes to capture the style, delivery and content of each performance. It’s been a very fun experience, taking what we’ve learned in music and applying it to a whole new category. Now, instead of talking about “minor keys,” “falsetto,” and “extensive vamping,” our comedy-analysts capture “odd juxtaposition” (A horse walks into a bar…), “misdirection” and “spoonerisms” (a well-boiled icicle, instead of a well-oiled bicycle)…

So, just like music, listeners can pick a starting point whether that be a specific comedian, genre, or specific joke. Young comedians will be linked to old greats like Cosby, Carlin and Pryor. It could really help young comedy lovers discover the people who influenced their current favorites.

Plus, this might in fact be the greatest thing to ever happen to road trips in the history of ever.

“It’ll be interesting when I find out who I’m paired up with,” said comedian Adam Carolla, whose material will be included in the service to the NYT. “I’m sure at some point someone will be insulted. There may be a lot of unintended comedy.”

The only shocking thing for me so far is that they were able to create a set of comedy “like” Louis C.K. – since he is the funniest person on the face of the planet. Since there aren’t multiple funniest persons on the planet, this seems odd to me. Go check him out now.

The video series called HP ePrint Live calls on people to send in ideas for comedic skits.

Viewers can submit their ideas to ideas@hpeprintlive.com. The accepted messages will print to one of the HP printers on stage. Riggle and the team of UCB Theater comedians will choose skit ideas and perform them live before millions of YouTube viewers. Submissions will be assembled into an ePrint gallery viewable on the live stream.

The show will be featured today on the homepage of YouTube. The live event begins at 3 p.m. ET and will be followed by five days (Jan. 22 – 26) of comedy shorts based on new ePrint submissions.

The two-hour live show will broadcast on the HP ePrint Live YouTube channel as well as the HP for Home Facebook page. Viewers also can participate for five days following the show, as suggestions will continue to be converted into original comedy shorts for viewing and sharing across online networks.

Timberlake says he’s "ridiculously stupid with computers".  He calls Zuckerberg a "brilliant mind".  

Colbert asks Sorkin fiction or fact? Sorkin responds, "Fiction…I’m sorry, fact…it’s absolute non-fiction." 

He goes on to say he wants to "start fights in the parking lot" about which characters are right and wrong. He also says viewers will enjoy the movie whether they love or hate Facebook.  

He also has a bit of interesting commentary about social networking in general. "I do think that socializing on the Internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality."  

Colbert’s response: "Well, we’re not going to get any deeper than that." 

Here’s Timberlake on The Daily Show:

Here’s Sorkin on Colbert:

See what director David Fincher has to say about Facebook here. Our review of The Social Network is here.