They wanted to create an edgy daily read that poked fun at the self-important Internet gurus of the day. Three months after the launch, several businesses expressed an interest in the audience they had collected. They accepted an offer from Wired, HotWired's parent. We just had to move our desks across the hall. From a technical standpoint, it's still easy to post the code.
Many people do that and are able to develop a modest readership for their sites in the process.
But building any type of mass audience now requires more resources than ever before. You need a marketing budget to spread the word, and advertising on your site to pay for spreading the word. That's why the Joey Anuff of today looks something like Michael Colton. Colton, a former writer for Brill's Content and a Harvard Lampoon alumnus, is creating Modern Humorist, an online humor magazine that will feature smart, biting satire. The site will debut in the spring.