Entries Tagged 'LOLmagnetz project' ↓

We’ll be publishing a 2009 Breadpig, Inc. profit & donation recap shortly, but there’s an overdue “Thank you” due for ThinkGeek. For giving breadpig yet another feature in their catalog (I think this makes three times? Awesome!). We couldn’t have given away $15,000 in LOLmagnetz profits last year if it weren’t for ThinkGeek, proud distributor of LOLmagnetz. We love you, ThinkGeek.

Alas, breadpig, while a full-time hero to the world, has its day-to-day operations handled only on a part-time basis – if that. But the SF/SPCA and EFF alike have benefited from what was a pretty successful year. Drawing from a year with $30,000 in profits, breadpig donated $15,000 to the SF/SPCA with profits derived from the sale of some magnetic LOL speak poetry called LOLmagnetz. With the hope that others will consider replicating the breadpig model, we thought we’d share what we learned.

The economy may have been tanking, but despite that (or maybe because of it) people were looking to spend $19.99 on magnetic poetry in pidgin English. If you don’t know about LOLcats, take a moment to educate yourself, and perhaps you’ll see why people would want to adorn photos of pets or relatives with such captions. Yes, what had originated on 4chan was now going to cover dorm refrigerators nationwide.

Like most good ideas, this one came up over a few beers. I was getting a round with breadpig partner, S.I. Newhouse. Discussing new product ideas to complement our existing unholidaycards, he suggested the idea — if they could make magnetic poetry for The “F” Word, surely someone would want it for LOLspeak.

It was many months before we finally got the chance to track down a supplier (not knowing anything about the magnet business, I ordered a kit of traditional magnetic poetry and found their supplier with a Google search). From there, we aimed to be ready in time for the first ROFLCon. I’d been invited as a panelist and moderator — coincidentally, to moderate the LOLpanel. It seemed like the ideal place to announce and perhaps peddle our wares.

The conference arrived, and like most projects, we had hit some delays and only had a few kits ready. At that point, it just made the most sense to create tiny gift sampler bags with 10-15 magnets in each. We lugged a few hundred that we hand-packed up to Boston and distributed them widely throughout the con with an additional magnet instructing people that they’d be for sale soon. In fact, Scott Beale of LaughingSquid was the first to ever report on them.

It just so happened that Ben Huh, founder of icanhascheezburger was also at the conference – on that aforementioned LOLpanel in fact. A month or so after our debut at ROFLCon, he had produced his own version. These kits are smaller and cheaper, but it turns out we even shared the same supplier, who confirmed that these had been ordered shortly after our own.

Well, that’s business for you. We knew we had to make up for lost time and S.I.’s brother Ben (another breadpig partner) finalized our 384-word corpus while S.I. wrote up the instructions and I created some suitable box art (story of our first model-cat here – with pics!).

We’d long ago registered the LOLmagnetz.com domain and Chris Slowe (the 4th partner) hacked our open-source reddit code into a site where anyone could submit, vote, and comment on photos of LOLmagnetz creations.

It wasn’t long until the first kits were ready to ship — we just had no idea where to. Distribution of shirts has no problem starting from one’s apartment, but the weight and scale of all those LOLmagnetz kits posed a problem. Furthermore, we didn’t have the market strength of icanhascheezburger, a community of rabid LOLcat fans. And that’s when S.I. had his next great LOL-idea: ThinkGeek.

It started with a few emails and maybe even a voicemail, but I got in contact with a buyer there who loved the idea. ThinkGeek made their first order near the end of the fall, just as global economies were collapsing and the world needed LOL more than ever. They would make a number of subsequent orders, much to breadpig’s delight.

ThinkGeek’s support was invaluable, going so far as to feature LOLmagnetz twice in their much-anticipated catalogs and sales have continued well past the holiday season. I wish there were more time to focus on growing it, but things like a LOLmagnetz.com redesign will have to wait. In the meantime, maybe we can encourage someone to try something equally as zany.

As appealing as digital is for most of us, there’s still very much a place for tangible stuff. And it doesn’t matter if you haven’t got any experience making it or selling it (though it doesn’t hurt). A good idea, some work, and a bit of Googling is enough to bring something to fruition.

Let us know if you’d like elaboration on any of the above or share a related story of your own in the comments.

Looks like LOLmagnetz have invaded some innocent officeworker’s cubicle. The result is a question that has haunted many for years. Who is Keyser Soze? LOLmagnetz might have a hunch…

see the twitpic original

Our first model-cat, Roslyn, was an exceptional feline (with an exceptional owner). So for version II of LOLmagnetz, the bar was set quite high.

Fortunately, Matilda didn’t let us down. Hopefully all this publicity won’t go to her head, but we’ve heard she has always been quite the diva.

Let us know what you think of the new model-cat. We’ll work out a more formal process to discover the next edition’s covermodel. We’ve got more felines to make famous.

Brian Ho is a man who knows how to have a good time. Furthermore, he’s a man who knows how to help his office have a good time. All while adhering to even the strictest corporate guidelines prohibiting at-work alcohol consumption.

The secret is LOLmagnetz. And with one kit, Brian turned his cubicle into the greatest wall in the office — a greater wall than even that one in China.

And today, my prediction started to come true as myself and some co-workers started creating (several inappropriate) phrases periodically throughout the day. We took it a level up when we started creating some phrases around some of the other things stuck to the cabinet including some of the group pictures from previous birthday parties.

Brilliant. The breadpig salutes you, Brian. Especially for this.

No one said LOLart had to be high art (though it’s often created while high). See the rest of Brian’s pictures on his LiveJournal.

The breadpig only recently discovered twitter and found that the breadpig legion had already made its presence known.

Guenlian, a satisfied breadpigger and owner of LOLmagnetz used this hip messaging system to express approval about our LOL instruction manual:

is amazed that LOLmagnetz come with instructions! “Precautions For Use: Your home is full of magnetic surfaces compatible with LOLmagnetz”

But that wasn’t all! Shortly thereafter came another tweet:

“we recommend that LOLmagnetz not be used” on computers. Complete with drawing of fried CPU with the “Can”, “Has”&”Fail” magnetz applied.

Thank you, Guenlian, for proving that some people still do read the manual. The breadpig labored over these instructions and is pleased to know these efforts weren’t in vain.

Breadpig was thrilled to see another LOLmagnetz appearance in this latest issue of the ThinkGeek catalog. Look for us under the red stapler. And don’t ever let them take away your red Swingline.

We’ve been proudly sold on ThinkGeek for a while now and couldn’t be happier with our nerdy relationship together.

Breadpig was invited to the opening of the SF SPCA’s magnificent new facility, the Leanne B. Roberts Animal Care Center. Due to a sudden world-saving mission, Alexis & Liz visited the opening in breadpig’s stead.

How did our breaded swine end up with such an honor? Well, that’s thanks to you, breadpig legion.

At the end of 2008, breadpig donated $15,000 to the SF SPCA from the profits of LOLmagnetz.

We’ll post a full recap of 2008’s donations in the days to come, but LOLmagnetz was without a doubt breadpig’s biggest success.

This money went to help a number of orphaned dogs and cats; to show their appreciation, the SPCA kindly renamed a room for breadpig. Always a fan of food (and rather edible itself – though no one would ever try) breadpig chose the kibble kitchen. And even got a stunning full color sign!

Inside is a wide assortment of (you guessed it) kibble. Reminiscent of those cereal towers from your university cafeteria, these animals are getting fed with state-of-the-art-kibble-dispensing technology.

Oh, and here’s the obligatory puppy photo. This little girl needed some serious surgery when she arrived — something involving a colon not being where it ought to — that the SF SPCA gladly provided and she’s now on her way to recovery and, with some luck, a happy home.

I’m not trying to eat her.

Another satisfied customer. Bekanator has a flickr stream full of great LOLmagnetz pictures.

Fact: once you go LOLmagnetz, your fridge can never go back.

Cat’s sinister mustache not photoshopped

Back in April, when we were assembling the first order of LOLmagnetz, breadpig had to rush together some cover art for the sticker adorning the case. My cat back home looked much too sinister for such a joyful product. (See picture on right.)

Time was one thing we didn’t have, so I turned to a Flickr search for Creative Commons licensed photos of ‘funny cat,’ or something like that.

And that’s how we found the lovely Roslyn, who had exactly the expression demanded for a case of LOLmagnetz.

I tried sending a message to the photographer, ocean yamaha, with a note and the promise of a free kit of magnets. This either didn’t go through or I’d smoked too much catnip and dreamed the whole thing up.

Either way, an email showed up from the photographer asking about attribution. I assured him that he was credited both in every kit and on the website.

He (and presumably also Roslyn) was quite pleased to be associated with a product helping so many orphaned dogs and cats. I sent them a pair of kits with one small request: to photograph Roslyn sitting beside a kit of LOLmagnetz.

Well, Ocean Yamaha went above and beyond, providing not only the photos I requested…

view original

view original

but also this:

admire the greatness of the original

Truly awesome. The entire breadpig legion collectively salutes you.