posted on April 23rd, 2008 in Community, Conventions, Dumbrella, Flash, Homestar Runner, JibJab, Live Action, Machinima, News, Penny Arcade, Rooster Teeth, Series, Web Comics 

ROFLCon kicks off Tomorrow

The guest list really is a who’s who of Internet fame and/or ignominy. Amplifier’s own Joel Bush will be there to hopefully document the event. We gave him a great video camera so honestly, he’s without excuse!

posted on February 14th, 2008 in College Humor, Content, Despair, Inc., Dumbrella, JibJab, Merch 

Show your Undies this Valentine’s Day.

Happy Valentine’s Day (sorta) from the Undies:

• College Humor offers holiday cards.
• Diesel Sweeties, too, has cards aplenty.
• Despair has BitterSweets Candies and a heart-shaped card that you can personalize with one or three hearts.
• JibJab has tons of themed Sendables waiting for you to make them your own.
• Perhaps sensing all of the above, Indexed commented on the (possibly rampant, at least among the Undies) anti-Valentine’s sentiment.

Enjoy.

posted on October 29th, 2007 in JibJab 

JibJab’s up for election. Vote early and often. And then sign up with JibJab, too!

TV Guide 2007 Online Video Awards

posted by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis

TV Guide has announced their nominees for the 2007 Online Video Awards… and have been kind enough to nominate our presidential mash up of the Star-Spangled Banner for the category of “funniest web video”! High fives, elbows, and head butts all around!

Best of all, they’re letting everyone and their proverbial grandmother vote on it! Click here to vote on TV Guide’s website.

Click here to watch the clip at JibJab.

And while you’re there, why not sign up so you can personalize your own Sendables and share them with your friends?

What’s a Sendable? Read their announcement and get rolling.

posted on October 26th, 2007 in Content, Despair, Inc., Homestar Runner, JibJab, Penny Arcade, Tiki Bar TV 

inside the Undies: Despair; Homestar Runner; Penny Arcade; Tiki Bar TV; JibJab.

Recent Undie goodness:

• Get out your credit card. Share the Despair. You can see all five new Demotivators here. I think this one is my favorite.
• Strong Bad answered an email about business travel. His commentary on webcomics last week reminded me of a classic from the Penny Arcade archives. It seems Gabe and Tycho anticipated the joke by, oh, about eight years.
• Tiki Bar TV unveiled their latest, Ice Breaker. Check the awesome new mug at the end of the episode.
• Just in time for Halloween, JibJab has served up two zombie reels (one featuring Democrats, the other Republicans) for their popular Starring You series of Sendables. Undie cat Aaron Simpson created his; you can, too.

Click the mug to get your drink on:

Your store links: Despair; Homestar Runner; Penny Arcade; Tiki Bar TV; JibJab; Aaron Simpson’s Cold Hard Flash.

posted on October 12th, 2007 in Ask a Ninja, Content, Despair, Inc., JibJab, Perry Bible Fellowship, Rooster Teeth, Undies, Web Comics 

Let’s look inside the Undies, 10.12.07

Some of our favorite Undies have been busy:

• Ask a Ninja question 56 “Back in the Day“
• Despair busts undependent.com and millions of others;
• Eepy Bird takes note (Digg it);
• Richard Stevens of Diesel Sweeties on undependence;
• Join this community, or the Ninja might have to, well… you know;
• Have you seen Tiki Bar TV’s “The Wedding” episode yet? It rocks.
• Don’t miss the Web Comics Weekly episode about channels;
• Rooster Teeth talked with CNN.
• The latest from Perry Bible Fellowship. Genius. (NSFW)
• JibJab’s launched another Starring You called Unnecessary Force. Undie and friend of the Undie Aaron Simpson has created his own. Why don’t you?

We like trying out new Undies, and we hope you do, too. Enjoy.

Feel free to recommend your favorite Undies to us. Thanks.

If you would like to support these Undies, here are your store links: Ask a Ninja; Despair; Eepy Bird; Diesel Sweeties; Tiki Bar TV; Rooster Teeth Productions; Perry Bible Fellowship; JibJab; Cold Hard Flash; and the four good folks behind Web Comics Weekly — Scott and Kris, Kris and Scott of Half Pixel; Evil, Inc.; and Sheldon. Undies need your support; buy directly from these creators and enjoy all their great stuff.

posted on September 29th, 2007 in Ask a Ninja, Community, Despair, Inc., JibJab, Penny Arcade, Rooster Teeth 

on the importance of being earnest about community

Undies thrive on a direct connection with their fans. Audiences definitely appreciate the ability to interact with creators, whether at conventions or online. This direct relationship lets creators earn and enjoy high unit margins on their sales because they often need no label, publisher, wholesaler, retailer, etc.

Successful community strategies vary as widely as the Undies themselves. For instance:

• Despair, Inc. lets their fans build their own Demotivators. In addition, Despair offers excellent promotions to members of their Wailing List.
• JibJab has a massive community presence and lets fans star in their own clips;
• Penny Arcade has forums at their site, and they host their own monster convention, the Penny Arcade Expo, that this year brought together almost 40,000 fans for three days of gaming festivities.
• Rooster Teeth Productions has built perhaps the greatest Undie community site around. Check these amazing stats:

The web continues to evolve new ways to build and manage your community. TechCrunch has reviewed nine such tools. I like Ning a lot myself.
Ask A Ninja has announced an upcoming upgrade to their community platform. We’re eager to see what the Ninja unleashes for fans.
Creators, how do you encourage and engage your tribe?

Fans, what community features do you like the most?

–JLB

posted on July 13th, 2007 in JibJab, News, Undies 

JibJab – Starring YOU

JibJab’s Spiridellis brothers give Business 2.0 a sneak peek of their forthcoming Starring You feature.

Video or Blog

posted on June 27th, 2007 in JibJab, Undies 

Jabbing about JibJab

Audience Wrangling: What JibJab Could Teach TV