Online comedy has come a long way in the past year. Only last summer C4's abysmal Dotcomedy series could find nothing more amusing than a stream of sexual perversions and a simpering Gail Porter, one of the reasons it was unceremoniously axed at the end of the first series. Now, however, comedy is alive and kicking hard - providing a foothold to many a struggling writer and offering unlikely hope to internet content providers looking for instant stickiness.
Stickiness is already the big buzzword of 2001, as websites struggle to find content which will see users returning again and again, thereby seeing more of their precious banner advertising. Traditionally, the ultimate in sticky content has been porn and competitions, with news trailing in a poor third and comedy almost nowhere to be seen.
"Comedy can be very sticky, if properly executed" says Mike Ragsdale, one of the three founder members of Hecklers.com, the US site launched in 1995 which now boasts 400,000 unique visitors per month and a claimed advertising click through of 3%, when the industry average is 0.5%. Interestingly, Hecklers not only applauds this loyalty but relies upon it. "While some comedians have to hope that their writers can come up with a few good laughs here and there, all we have to do is hope that of the 5,000 emails we receive and review every day, that a handful of them contain an hilarious joke that would have otherwise gone untold, and unrecorded."
In the past, bandwidth restrictions ensured online comedy catered for the lowest common denominator, with the likes of www.jokeindex.com quickly replacing the old Xerox funnies which used to be stuck to company notice-boards, if not gaining a reputation for originality. This too is changing, as improved download times make both animation and video a feasible part of comedy output.
"The problem with internet comedy_" explains Charlie Brooker, co-founder of the UK comedy collective Zeppotron, "is that the user is sitting in an uncomfortable chair with one hand on the mouse and there's a million things they would rather be doing. You have to keep things short. Five minutes is too long, two minutes is about our maximum."
Zeppotron was founded at the end of last year from the writing core of the 11-o'clock show and is best known for the Radio Times spoof TV Go Home and the animated series Office Romance. The TV Go Home page alone boasts 40,000 unique visitors a month with an average visit lasting 14 minutes - highly sticky by anyone's standards. Using this brand-based approach has already worked in mainstream broadcasting for decades. Indeed, the company is 25% owned by Endemol, responsible for TV hits such as Big Brother and Ready Steady Cook - all simple formulae, relentlessly hammered home.
"You do have to be fairly unsubtle," says Brooker. "You have to convince people quickly that's it's a good thing to hang around, which lends itself to sledgehammer tactics. The problem with instant publishing is that writers tend to get carried away and not edit themselves."
However, there is a worry that comedy could go the same way as porn, with users gravitating towards harder material which would be shunned by mainstream broadcasters. Popular spoof-site The Onion may be consistently funny but veers perilously closer to slander. It boasts a steady million visits per week.
"It's really hard to imagine online comedy becoming more radical, if you're talking about the subject matter." concludes Ragsdale. "I mean, at this point online, is there anything we haven't already seen, in terms of sexuality or violence or taboos?
"Advertisers simply aren't comfortable supporting "Rated-X" and even "Rated-R" humour. Believe me, we've tried. And without advertisers or some major corporate backing, it's hard to imagine how a large comedy media company could ever evolve."
All of which puts comedy back where it started, coming to terms with new technology but wrestling with its conscience as to how far to push it. As many a struggling comic has already discovered, being radical is all well and good -but it rarely pays the bills.
The web's idea of funny
www.theonion.com
An accurate pastiche of both Yahoo and CNN, the Onion maintains a hectic stream of very amusing spoofs. While the site is primarily US-oriented, headlines such as "Sociologist Considers Own Behavior Indicative Of Larger Trends" has to be worth further consideration.
C4's new digital channel has already managed some pioneering comedy such as the excellent Banzai, and its new website delves into original online material too. Unfortunately, the site is unnecessarily Flash-heavy, making it hard to navigate for those using slower PCs.
Inventive American slander, broken into bite sized chunks.
www.disappointment.com
Like most comedy, this quirky, low-budget shrine to tasteless observation divides those who comes across it. The Net recently voted it one of the 5 un-funniest on the web; the author's own girlfriend, described as "crushingly dull and looks like a pig" would be likely to agree. Others, however, think it's hilarious.
The Zeppotron site focuses on their three best-known comedy brands, TV Go Home, Office Romance and Unnovations. All very funny, for those not easily offended, and much of the content is fast approaching the best standards of TV comedy.
