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I think moot is trolling the 4Chan community. They hate sites like this and with it being as bubbly looking as it is I'd imagine they must be in shock. There's

I think moot is trolling the 4Chan community. They hate sites like this and with it being as bubbly looking as it is I'd imagine they must be in shock. There's nothing actually wrong with the site, but it's not a very novel idea so I wonder why he spent time on it. Maybe the KnowYourMeme's of the world are eating away at 4Chan's "market" so he's trying to get more pieces of the pie. The images people are uploading are basically bottom of the barrel. I'd expect to see this stuff emailed to me by my aunt in Wisconsin. Maybe it's an experiment with identity. 4Chan is anonymous yet this site requires Facebook Connect. (Though it seems that FB won't be required after the beta.)

benologist 15y ago
If he wanted to troll 4Chan he wouldn't have raised $3.6m for it? http://www.crunchbase.com/company/canvas-networks http://www.crunchbase.com/company/canvas-networks
- coderdude 15y ago
  I don't think the two actions (raising money and trolling 4Channers) are mutually exclusive. I don't think he deliberately went out of his way to troll anyone, but that is most likely how it will be seen by some users. For their Commander in Chief to create a site like this it's actually funny. There's no way in the world he doesn't know that 4Chan users hate sites like these. Maybe he doesn't want them to migrate over? He does want to make some money, after all.
jacobolus 15y ago
The interface seems pretty substantially better (read: easier to navigate and interact with) than any other “swap image ‘meme’” sites. The content and discussion seems about on par with YouTube. I think that’s just what you get when you build a community consisting of generic 10–20 year-olds. There’s no reason that I can see for the snide tone of your comment.
- coderdude 15y ago
  That's just how you perceived my comment. I wasn't being snide at all. Perhaps you were already on the defensive side when you read it. The images really are unfunny and uninteresting (not their fault), the interface is bubbly[1] (which isn't a negative thing), and the idea isn't novel. I did go out of my way to reassure them that there wasn't anything wrong with the site itself. [1] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bubbly http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bubbly (so that we're clear about what I meant)
  - jacobolus 15y ago
    You said you thought the either (a) the site was made as a troll, or (b) you couldn’t think of any other reason to have spent time on it, because (c) the content was something you’d get from your (implicitly technically clueless, rural) aunt. The implication was that whoever made this site was wasting their time and ours. I don’t have any reason to be “already defensive” (I had never heard of this thing before today and I’m definitely not the target audience), and I agree with you that – given the demographic using the site – most of the content is pretty juvenile and uninteresting. But your criticism is mostly content free, and the tone reads as the sort of speculative petty sarcasm that I’d rather avoid on this site. Anyway, I haven’t seen this idea before: what other site has a front page filled with tiled user-submitted pictures, which when clicked on open up a comment thread wherein each one can be remixed by other users? There are mediated “funny picture” sites like Can Has Cheezburger, and there are general-purpose discussion fora like 4chan and Reddit that include many “funny” pictures, but nothing especially like this current effort, that I’ve seen. Funny pictures don’t really appeal to me (for that matter, I think the overwhelming majority of the content at facebook, youtube, twitter, reddit, and similar sites is also garbage), but I it’s always interesting to see what kinds of interfaces new community based sites come up with, what kinds of interactions they afford, and how that shapes users’ actions and contributions. There’s more to discuss here than “meh this sucks, it’s probably just a troll.”
jmathes 15y ago
I met him and his team at SHDH48 on Microsoft campus in mountain view last year. It's not trolling. In fact, they invited a bunch of core 4chan users to be early canvas users. He's just moving on to another project, this time with a team of valley insiders he persuaded to move to New York.
ltamake 15y ago
He's not really trolling them tbh. 4chan's community is just worried that moot will shut down 4chan in favour of Canvas. A lot of 4chan users look at Canvas as another Web 2.0 company that will quickly sell out. And anyway, Canvas can't stay in public beta forever, can it?
jarin 15y ago
I don't think it's trolling at all. It's just taking the same wildly successful (traffic-wise) image board concept and remaking it for the exact opposite audience (one who would never participate on 4chan, and has the added bonus of being advertisable to). I mean, is Volkswagen trolling VW Bug owners by pushing Audi as a mainstream luxury brand?
keypusher 15y ago
You seem to be associating all of 4chan (and moot) with the wildly infamous subset of culture that exists on b/. It isn't all about Anonymous and troll memes, there's plenty of bubbly happy content and silly stuff on 4chan, and this site seems to fit into that side of it. I will agree that the content seems pretty weak right now and the design looks fairly childish, from the stickers and the colors to the layout. If they are going after the tween market, it might be a gigantic hit. If they are hoping to capture the power users that made 4chan what it is today, I don't see that happening.
atomicdog 15y ago
>I think moot is trolling the 4Chan community. They hate sites like this Bare in mind Moot created 4chan before its, should we say, "unique" community developed. It was originally an weeaboo style anime site, of sorts. Moot doesn't necessarily like or hate the same things as the /b/tards do.

benologist 15y ago

If he wanted to troll 4Chan he wouldn't have raised $3.6m for it? http://www.crunchbase.com/company/canvas-networks http://www.crunchbase.com/company/canvas-networks

coderdude 15y ago
I don't think the two actions (raising money and trolling 4Channers) are mutually exclusive. I don't think he deliberately went out of his way to troll anyone, but that is most likely how it will be seen by some users. For their Commander in Chief to create a site like this it's actually funny. There's no way in the world he doesn't know that 4Chan users hate sites like these. Maybe he doesn't want them to migrate over? He does want to make some money, after all.

jacobolus 15y ago

The interface seems pretty substantially better (read: easier to navigate and interact with) than any other “swap image ‘meme’” sites. The content and discussion seems about on par with YouTube. I think that’s just what you get when you build a community consisting of generic 10–20 year-olds. There’s no reason that I can see for the snide tone of your comment.

coderdude 15y ago
That's just how you perceived my comment. I wasn't being snide at all. Perhaps you were already on the defensive side when you read it. The images really are unfunny and uninteresting (not their fault), the interface is bubbly[1] (which isn't a negative thing), and the idea isn't novel. I did go out of my way to reassure them that there wasn't anything wrong with the site itself. [1] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bubbly http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bubbly (so that we're clear about what I meant)
- jacobolus 15y ago
  You said you thought the either (a) the site was made as a troll, or (b) you couldn’t think of any other reason to have spent time on it, because (c) the content was something you’d get from your (implicitly technically clueless, rural) aunt. The implication was that whoever made this site was wasting their time and ours. I don’t have any reason to be “already defensive” (I had never heard of this thing before today and I’m definitely not the target audience), and I agree with you that – given the demographic using the site – most of the content is pretty juvenile and uninteresting. But your criticism is mostly content free, and the tone reads as the sort of speculative petty sarcasm that I’d rather avoid on this site. Anyway, I haven’t seen this idea before: what other site has a front page filled with tiled user-submitted pictures, which when clicked on open up a comment thread wherein each one can be remixed by other users? There are mediated “funny picture” sites like Can Has Cheezburger, and there are general-purpose discussion fora like 4chan and Reddit that include many “funny” pictures, but nothing especially like this current effort, that I’ve seen. Funny pictures don’t really appeal to me (for that matter, I think the overwhelming majority of the content at facebook, youtube, twitter, reddit, and similar sites is also garbage), but I it’s always interesting to see what kinds of interfaces new community based sites come up with, what kinds of interactions they afford, and how that shapes users’ actions and contributions. There’s more to discuss here than “meh this sucks, it’s probably just a troll.”

jmathes 15y ago

I met him and his team at SHDH48 on Microsoft campus in mountain view last year. It's not trolling. In fact, they invited a bunch of core 4chan users to be early canvas users. He's just moving on to another project, this time with a team of valley insiders he persuaded to move to New York.

ltamake 15y ago

He's not really trolling them tbh. 4chan's community is just worried that moot will shut down 4chan in favour of Canvas. A lot of 4chan users look at Canvas as another Web 2.0 company that will quickly sell out. And anyway, Canvas can't stay in public beta forever, can it?

jarin 15y ago

I don't think it's trolling at all. It's just taking the same wildly successful (traffic-wise) image board concept and remaking it for the exact opposite audience (one who would never participate on 4chan, and has the added bonus of being advertisable to). I mean, is Volkswagen trolling VW Bug owners by pushing Audi as a mainstream luxury brand?

keypusher 15y ago

You seem to be associating all of 4chan (and moot) with the wildly infamous subset of culture that exists on b/. It isn't all about Anonymous and troll memes, there's plenty of bubbly happy content and silly stuff on 4chan, and this site seems to fit into that side of it. I will agree that the content seems pretty weak right now and the design looks fairly childish, from the stickers and the colors to the layout. If they are going after the tween market, it might be a gigantic hit. If they are hoping to capture the power users that made 4chan what it is today, I don't see that happening.

atomicdog 15y ago

>I think moot is trolling the 4Chan community. They hate sites like this Bare in mind Moot created 4chan before its, should we say, "unique" community developed. It was originally an weeaboo style anime site, of sorts. Moot doesn't necessarily like or hate the same things as the /b/tards do.