www.icanhas.cheezburger.com

icanhas.cheezburger.com is a web2 website that contains funny pictures with captions. It began using just pictures of cats with deliberately misspelt captions which were supposed to be interpreted as being spoken by the cat in the picture The reason for the name of the website derives from the very first funny cat picture - which are known as lolcats - where a grey cat asks for a cheeseburger. It has since been assumed that cats really love cheeseburgers. Anyone can upload and caption their own picture or just caption an existing picture. This is then submitted and people vote for their favourite captions and the winners are put onto the website. The main positive feature of this website is the entertainment it provides. I like the website because I like cats and I especially like funny pictures of cats. Other than providing entertainment there aren’t really any other positive points to say about this website. The negative features of this website are that it contains a lot of advertising; the website is completely free to view and contribute to and so only makes money from adverts. In addition the website has become slightly addictive for me and I have found I have wasted a large amount of time looking at pictures of cats instead of doing something productive. Wired magazine in its October 2012 edition brought to light to what extent the internet is used for looking at pictures and videos of cats, it made for surprising reading and more importantly made me realise that I was not alone in my cat obsession.

Wired October 2012 Article

Viral Advertising

The film Prometheus used various methods to advertise the film. As you would expect for a major Hollywood blockbuster there were the usual trailers on television and posters. In addition to this adverts and websites for the fictional organisation futuristic products found in the film can be found all over the internet. In the film which is set in the year 2093 Guy Pearce’s character Peter Weyland appears as a very elderly man probably about 90 years old. This was done so that a fake TED talk could be created where Guy Pearce appears as Peter Weyland in the year 2023 when the characters organisation ‘Weyland Industries’ is supposed to have been created. There is a very realistic looking website dated 2073 for ‘Weyland industries’ which contains detailed information about the company, for example it is valued at $218 trillion and employs 619.698 million people on planet earth. Michael Fassbenders character in the film is a robot and a viral advert for this type of robot starring an unnerving Michael Fassbender as his character was created. I am impressed with this level of detail in film advertising; it is quite submersive and builds tension and excitement up to a film’s release really well. It is an example of innovation in advertising and an excellent use of a widely accessible medium.

Weyland Industries