FULL DISCLOSURE, to avoid PAA (Pulling An Arrington): I was a member of Y Combinator, as are the founders of Fuzzwich. I am not in any way invested in their startup or their success. Granted, I'd like them to succeed, just as I'd like any YC startup to succeed.
Except for Justin.tv, I really hate those guys. They still owe me a beer for their gorilla.
Except for Justin.tv, I really hate those guys. They still owe me a beer for their gorilla.
UPDATE: The last time I was in SF, the Justin.tv crew did indeed buy me a beer (2, in fact) as well as dinner. Fatwa over.
The concept of Fuzzwich is simple: easily build a quick and professional(enough)-looking animation, share with friends and family, bathe in their praise, repeat. Admittedly, despite how much I like the pixel art look of the site, I didn't quite get the concept at first.
It all made sense to me once I compared it to the 5 iconic letters of my Internet upbringing: YTMND.
"You're The Man Now, Dog" (long story) has always been a staple for finding quick n' dirty viral .gif animations, be they geeky, catchy, inappropriate -- or all three. This site single-handedly spawns (and/or beats to death) all kinds of Internet memes.
If Fuzzwich can become that source for anyone -- not just those of us who care about esoteric geek culture and don't mind reading that heinous WordArt-looking text -- who wants to create something cool to share, they'll be in a great place. I'm convinced that by flattening the learning curve so that such "creativity tools" were painless enough, even Steve could create some pretty neat things. And Fuzzwich does it with style, too.
But why does my spellcheck keep telling me "Fuzzwich" isn't a word?
To demonstrate the site's potential (and show off their recently created politics section -- take that, JibJab) I've created a minivid scientifically-proven to provoke any reddit user. It took me no more than 7 minutes; I had to get the song just right.
Hint: there's a Ron Paul figure included. No Mike Gravel character yet; I hope they can animate the rock toss. Or better yet, maybe they should add the reddit alien...
We all can't invest the time and energy of Andy Samberg and the SNL Digital Shorts crew, but it doesn't take much to create a viral online vid. Besides, Fuzzwich is about sharing creative works, not walling them in. We'll see how long this clip of "Iran So Far" (a tribute to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) lasts on YouTube...
Oh, Mahmoud...
