I recently discovered this new internet phenomenon known as The Dead Body Guy. Back in December 47 year old software engineer from Ohio, Chuck Lamb, started a web site in which he posted pictures of himself playing dead in his house. The site really caught on and in its first three weeks picked up 300,000 hits. Then the site really really caught on and is now featured on CNN, New York Times, USA Today and hundreds of radio and television stations. Lamb says that his goal is to get his name in the credits of a movie. His publicist is negotiating spots on CSI, Saturday Night Live, Jay Leno, and Conan O’Brian. The thing that impresses me is the amount of buzz that Lamb has generated simply over photographs of himself playing dead.

This has got me thinking about the type of content that people want. Before I saw The Dead Body Guy I thought that people were flocking there for the shock effect but the photos evoke feelings of humor and silliness more than anything else. My personal favorite is the photo of Lamb drowning in his chicken soup bowl.

People want the type of content that evokes emotion. The type of emotion is quite inconsequential. Weather its happy, sad, anger, or love, if a site can tug on a person’s emotional cords it will be successful. The hard part is figuring out what sort of content does this. Of course porn, violence, controversy, politics, money, humor and food all evoke these types of feelings. I wonder what types of sites I could start up with those guidlines…