Algorithm Entrepreneurship learning Audience's "Happy Laugh Point" with "funny" to get money

Do you really believe that by arithmetic, you can figure out the jokes you think are funny?

"We all know what you can poke at, anyway." Laffster, a California start-up, said with infinite confidence.

Last week, the Laffster company, which was guided by the start-up accelerator Muckerlab, raised 750,000 dollars in seed financing. At the same time, the company's first product, the application Mock the Vote, is dedicated to digging out funny political jokes on the web for different clients. The app digs up funny articles and videos about political news, which are divided into three categories: Red (Republican), Blue (Democratic), and "undecided". Think about the political satire of the Daily Show and the Colbert report, and whether there are always some jokes about the people who don't have the same political stance on it.

I have to say, this http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/6517.html "> Niche market does contain business opportunities. According to the Pew Research Center, 50% of adults in 2009 will go to watch funny videos when they surf the internet, much higher than the 31% in 2007. In contrast to people's boundless enthusiasm for funny jokes, it is now only CollegeHumor and FunnyorDie in the U.S. market that occupy a small chunk of the area. And in the domestic, in addition to such as Youku, 56, such as a few big video site Comedy channel is a little interesting, specifically for different groups of segments of the market can be said to have not yet formed, the consumer power of the strong adult market is no exception.

Then, if you can really through the algorithm, find different audiences "laugh point", the push content "hit" should be very high?

Learn the audience's "Happy Laughing Point"

In this respect, Laffster company is confident that it can grasp the audience's various taste preferences; every audience feels funny, they believe they know. Laffster through the use of special IP technology, repeatedly learn to understand what can make a certain audience laugh.

At the same time, the company said its current application for political satire was just one of the many other themes used in the company, and the remainder would be released later.

"According to the different social profiles of our audience, we're trying to make them laugh all their lives," said Dan Altmann, chief executive of Laffster. "When it comes to funny content on the web, everyone will be happy." ”

Can they really know the "laugh points" of different audiences? Believe it or not, according to them, everything is based on science. and math.

Altmann explained that to identify people's "laugh Point", first of all, to provide highly detailed information of the service software. It also has to incorporate people's "footprints" in the Internet to master what they love, as Facebook uses the user's "praise" and uses friends for advice. The last thing left is the use of psychology.

Does the algorithm really make you laugh?

To find out where the "laugh" of a particular audience is, the Laffster team has written algorithms to track keywords that poke at users ' jokes.

At the same time, the company hired a comedy academic researcher from the University of Colorado (not kidding, a humorist), a neuroscientist from Dartmouth University, and a longtime cartoonist Bob Mankoff, a New Yorker.

In addition, the co-founder of the company itself is a few funny geniuses. Its chief technical officer, Geoff Plitt, is a stand-up comedian who used to be a Google engineer. Also, the company's chief executive, Dan Altmann, once worked for Barry Biller, an internet group that founded the Fox Broadcasting Corporation, and the website CollegeHumor is a member of the group.

To find out why people laugh, two founders will hold meetings with creative directors and researchers and other think tanks. "We are not meeting to judge what is not funny, but to study ' Why is this funny? ' said Altmann.

Use "funny" to get money.

At present, the profit model of Laffster company is mainly: advertise in the application, provide the content of payment and sponsorship, etc.

At present, the company is working with comedy club Laugh Factory, hoping to use the club's political comedy video to attract users. The company also works with maker Studio's Polipop YouTube channel, in addition to providing users with their existing video, and will also require them to provide customized content specifically for Laffster.

"Among people aged 40 and below in the United States, one-third of people choose to look at the satirical news from Jon Stewart (The Daily Show host), Stephen Colbert (Moderator of The Colbert Report), and not the traditional news sources," he said. Altmann, citing a recent analysis. "Believe it or not, this is our news source, from a satirical comedy show." We also want to get the information in time and insight into what is happening in the world. But it's a way of making people laugh through the way that Stewart and Colbert express themselves. ”

Bianhouyu language: In the domestic, from the content choice, as long as does not involve the party country's content, those satire nowadays social hot spot still has quite operable. But social hot news is just a small piece of online comedy. From the big joke market, what needs to be really solved is how to get the user's preference through algorithms. Otherwise, give people wrong push (or promote) the "look tasteless" of the jokes, it is better not to push it, lest the name of harassment.