Ben Huh

Chief Cheezburger, I Can Has Cheezburger

From Blogs to Books
19 minutes, 9.1mb, recorded 2011-02-16
Ben Huh

Wouldn't it be amazing if you could learn how to publish a best-selling book? It would be even more amazing, if you knew that the recipe for publishing success was coming from someone who publishes books with only pictures of cats.

As Ben Huh suggests, the future of publishing requires a new process. By studying the success of other best-selling books, the Cheezburger Network learned that there are new rules for delivering popular books. For Huh, following these new rules has allowed his company to win new fans, while at the same time several New York Times best sellers.

There is a new landscape in publishing. There are many popular websites who want to repackage their content for books. There are also many popular authors looking to grow their popularity online. For Huh and the Cheezburger Network, they see some traps in this search for "good content."

Huh offers a set of questions anyone looking to stay competitive in publishing must answer before they start any book. In addition, he offers some observations on how technology can help us deliver products that people have always wanted. With several best sellers, millions of regular visitors, and billions of page views, maybe Huh and company are on to something. 


Ben Huh has always been a start up guy. His latest company, the Cheezburger Network, has been credited with bringing Internet memes to the mainstream and popularizing Internet culture. Ben founded the Cheezburger Network in 2007 and grew it into one of the largest humor networks in the world in less than two years — while making a profit during one of the deepest recessions.

Ben credits the success of his company to the users and fans who create the content and those who started the sites he acquired, such as icanhascheezburger.com and failblog.org. His goal is to make the world happy for 5-minutes a day.

Ben graduated with a BSJ from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

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Photo: Speakeasy