I Can Has Cheezburger’s Millions

Folks, I’m reemerging from my self-imposed exile to talk to you about the future of LOLCats as a business model. I pulled my bearish self out of hibernation to react to this piece from Slate, in which the estimable Farhad Manjoo writes that the folks behind I Can Has Cheezburger—the Gaia of the lolcats world—are making gobs and gobs of liquid gold. Yes, the empire that lolcats built is making a profit.

To which I say: Duh. Why else do you think I, Trevor Felix, would have started a mega-successful site like LOLEConz? LOLEconz has always admired and followed the model of ICHC, to the point where cynics were calling us copy cats. But I don’t have time for cynics. I only have time for innovation.

The idea for LOLEconz first came to me when I saw an interview with the founder of Pet Holdings (the company behind ICHC), in which he said the company’s network of sites was generating 3.3 million pageviews a day. 3.3 million page-views a day is about what The Slate Group pulls in. And pageviews = ad dollars; if not now, then once the ad market starts to rebound. And an entrepreneur like me, Trevor Felix (founcer, president, and CEO of LOLEconz.com) can’t pass up an opportunity to make money while enriching the world with art and education.

And I’ll make a bold statement right here and now: LOLEconz will be around just as long as ICHC. Like father, like kitty.