His humor isn’t for everyone, but I rather enjoy watching Conan O’Brien. I missed the episode in which Conan debuted the “Horny Manatee”, but I did catch the next episode where he announced the website. He made up some crazy story that went something like this: because he mentioned the URL on the air, NBC was obligated to purchase the domain, and they figured they might as well make a website out of it!
Now aside from being funny, I thought this was a great comedy bit for another reason – user generated comedy. Yes, that’s a play on user generated content. Not only did Conan’s team create the website, but they invited fans to send in additional content. This does two things. First, it gets the audience and hardcore fans more involved in the show (Conan featured some of the best fan submissions). Second, it offloads some of the work (of making a funny and entertaining show) to the audience!
I don’t know where this will go, or if we’ll start to see more of these kinds of projects, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway. I’m sure something similar has been done before, but this was the first time I really thought about it.
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