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Ben Huh and His Lucrative Empire of LOLcats

by Leila Brillson on August 19, 2009 at 06:54 AM

Ben Huh not only has one of the most appropriate names on the Net, but easily one of the greatest jobs, as well. [Ed. Note: The writer still thinks ICanHasCheezburger is funny.] Huh owns the company Pet Holdings, and under its random, hilarious, of-the-moment blogs, he administers FailBlog.org, Cheezburger, canine counterpart IHasAHotdog, and EngrishFunny. His collection of sites may not have spawned Internet catch-phrases like 'Epic Win' or 'LOLcats', but they certainly have capitalized on them.

Huh told Time.com, "There's no way on the planet this should actually work. But it's working." He is referring to his 10.4 million unique visitors, which helped Pet Holdings to earn seven figures in the first six months of 2009. Then there's the merchandising. The 'ICHC' book was on the New York Times Bestseller's list for 13 weeks last winter, and Huh's sites have generated such diverse enterprises as: LOLspeak kitchen magnets, FailBlog's YouTube channels, and have even inspired a musical debuting in New York this week based on the pidgin-speaking kitties. (Yes, we are serious. You can even attend here.)

The bottom line, and the reason Huh's company is so unique, is that it has so quickly pegged online phenomena, capitalizing on them with user-submitted content. The recipe for success is that these sites aren't trying to sell you anything (with the exceptions of the 'ICHC' book and ad space). All they intend to do is provide the LOLs. Somehow, almost three years later (which is eons in Internet time), cats 'n'captions still work. [From: Time.com]

Tags: ben huh, BenHuh, cats, fail, lolcats, meme, top, win

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