What's up with the new sections? Or: why is there a "meals" section?
Yesterday we have 1) created a sidebar for "Front", "Rising", "Fresh", "Woah" and "Reaction" and 2) added two new sections called "Meals" and "Webcomics".
This caused a lot of uproar:
Why is there a "Meals" section?
Isn't HUGELOL for funny things only?
Won't this section bring bad people to HUGELOL?
Let us answer your questions so you understand.
1. Why is there a "Meals" section?
The main reason why we added the "Meals" (and the "Woah", "Reaction", "Webcomics") section is because HUGELOL cannot finance itself. We do not have a valuable ad partner on the main site. This only leaves us with not-so-good-ones. And these not-so-good-ones don't pay good. The average server bill for HUGELOL is between $800-$1000 - the earnings are nowhere near that number.
So we had an idea. Why not create a section where only safe-for-work, verified content is allowed so attractive ad partners will work with us? Thus we added the "Woah" / "Reaction" sections. We put them on trial for a few weeks and it worked. That's why they are there - without them, HUGELOL wouldn't be here today.
You need to know, we don't have some fancy rich investors behind us - we keep the site up with a shoestring budget. Month for month. If there was a way to finance the site with only the main system (Front, Rising, Fresh) itself we'd do it within a heartbeat.
2. Isn't HUGELOL for funny things only?
We have never clearly said this in the past. However, with the new sections, we are certainly moving in this direction. This is why we have put this "unfunny" content in their own systems and not integrated them with HUGELOL itself.
3. Won't this section bring bad people to HUGELOL?
We have been monitoring the signups made by users on the "Woah" and "Reaction" section in the last few weeks and have not found that there is a significant number of users creating an account - the weekly average was 10-16 people (we have an average of 1200 new users per week).
Most people are too lazy to create an account for a section they can browse without having to register. Making them available to unregistered users was an important part of the design.
HUGELOL is not an elitist club, we are open and free for everyone. And if you think that someone's post is good, give it a like. If you don't, dislike it.
We hope this answered most of your questions. If you still have an important question unanswered, you can message us directly at http://hugelol.com/messages/1.
Still, we hope at least some of you like the new sections we have added and we will continue to post amazing content :)