Cartoon Mojo 101

First of all, thanks to everyone who signed up for an account and posted their work. As I write this we have about 14 new videos on top of the five we had premiered yesterday. Thanks as well to all who wished us well. That really means a lot to us.

After a day of existence, the most pressing question posed to us is why this site? What are our plans? How does it all work? Who makes money? Are we money grubbing profiteers who will eat your flesh and turn you into zombies?

For those of you who caught the nice post on Cartoon Brew (big thanks to Amid Amidi) about our launch, you might have read some comments about the supposed dubious nature of our site. Now it's pretty natural to think that someone's out to exploit someone else. It's human nature especially in today's society to think your neighbor is a crook, then be pleasantly surprised when they're not. So we certainly don't blame people for thinking this way. We're probably guilty of this ourselves in some form.

So let me explain what we're about and what our intentions are so we can be clear.

Octavio Rodriguez and I thought of a concept for an indie cartoon channel on the internet. Our main objective was to establish a place where one can watch animation and nothing else because we where tired of hunting them down on the internet on an endless trail of sites. We were both at the tail end of spending a few years pitching shows to studios with little success and really wanted to find a way to make an impact, however small. We knew that focusing a site on animation could only net positive results for our fellow artists who have chosen to make their own shorts. The venue would be easy to find and being surrounded by fellow film makers would result in generating positive opportunities.

But you ask "What's in it for us?" This would be hard to believe but it's for the pure satisfaction that we've done SOMETHING. If we both died tomorrow we'd at least be remembered for doing SOMETHING for the animation industry. What about money and profits and dreams of mansions made of gold and 20 car garage full of sports cars???

Again you'd be surprised to know that we made Cartoon Mojo easy to use and as simple as possible to maintain because all we want is for it to be self-sufficient. In other words, generate enough to cover the cost of existing. That is our one realistic goal at the moment. If it never gets beyond this then we consider this a monumental achievement. Octavio and I have around 25 years of experience in the animation industry between us. We are gainlfully employed by the studios and are well compensated. We're also not some old Enron type dudes who will take your money or something... The reason we put our names out there is for people to know we are accountable to our colleagues whose fabulous work we feature on the site.

Four our contributors this means they can park their work on CM for as long as the site exists with no strings attached. And speaking of that, the terms are simple: You post your work and we leave you alone. We want no part of it. It's yours. What we offer is a place where being part of the collective means that the concentrated location will guarantee you hits and eyeballs. Certainly better than being alone we think?

What's down the road is not known to us. Our immediate goals are to generate enough advertising revenue to first, keep the site sustainable. There are many factors to consider. As the site grows the cost of bandwidth will surely increase commensurate to the growth. But if we can operate in the black, that would be an incredible feat and it would ensure the survival of the site. Beyond covering costs there is profit sharing. Our contributors would be compensated in this scenario. What the terms are, we don't know because we have not reached that point. It would be pretty stupid of us to offer this off the bat without any realistic knowledge of how to implement it. So right now we offer nothing. Just a place post your stuff and we absorb the cost. It's an even trade off and it's managed by 2 guys in the business who aren't out to get you.

Our business model as it stands is a simple quid pro quo. If we generate enough traffic from the collective group of films we would be attractive to advertisers who will need the traffic for their ads. No traffic, No ads. No ads, no revenue. No revenue, No mojo. We're flipping the bill until this happens and we're more than happy to do it.

Are we naive? Idealistic? Stupid? call us what you want but in the end we believe we are putting fort something that is positive and because of this, good things will happen for those people whose honest work appears on our site. Either by their own savvy or in concert with Cartoon Mojo.

How are we different from other similar sites? We can only speak for ourselves. With all do respect, we don't have downloadable content, flash games, iPhone do-hickees and other stuff. Our original vision is for a simple to use, no-frills site to watch animation and nothing else. What about the future? We don't know because our crystal ball doesn't see that far.

What are our other plans beyond generating a profit? We'd love to get into making our own content but that's way, way down the road. That's if we're still around. For now we'll see what happens. What we do know is we want it to be a real community of animators and artists. So we can see hosting some local events to get everyone together. Again, it's no use talking about stuff that hasn't happened but we do have future plans. We'll share it when we're ready.

So we hope that answers at least the immediate questions. Post your comments here especially if you still think we're internet vampires.


Louie & Octavio