The article doesn't seem to have a single link to the site or to any other site except its own.

http://canv.as/

Ohh, so that's what it is. I've been hearing about it, and never actually bothered to figure out what it does.

So... it's a fancy lolcat generator?

That's the big use case right now. A more flexible version of http://www.quickmeme.com - though I'm sure users will come up with other cool uses in the coming months.

I see. I wouldn't invest in that at $3 million.

The "let's put captions on pictures" fad surely can't last forever. It's still only five years since the first lolcat, and the super-meme here has acquired hundreds of mini-memes (lolcats, advice dog, courage wolf, yo dawg, FAIL, philoso-raptor,... and a serious bunch of crap that's probably hilarious to about six dozen people in the world). Anyway, it surely has to get old eventually... I can't imagine that my kids will still be captioning things.

Captions are as old as the New Yorker or The Far Side and quite likely older. A large portion of Reddit's popularity is based on pictures. More to it, people send each other pictures through Facebook.

Lolcats may not be forever, but captions are. So are people who think they have comedic talent. Make a great online photoshop option, and there are many options.

On an unprofessional note, Canvas is basically 4chan for hipsters.

But Poole's growth of this startup is incredible. I do enjoy the product occasionally, but it's definitely a game changer for messageboards.

Game-changer for message-boards? In what way, exactly?

I am also interested in knowing how it is a game changer (honest curiosity).

Just because of the "remix" feature and the community behind it. Hasn't been done before afaik. Kinda neat.

Isn't 4chan for hipsters just 4chan?

I think in this case "for hipsters" means "with less bestiality".

For some reason I feel the need to get that printed on a t-shirt.

I wonder if somebody went back in time to the early 00s and told the kids from something awful that their photoshop Fridays would eventually inspire a business with a 3 million startup investment, what they would say.

How will Canvas generate revenue? Is the investment purely about unique views/traction?

Union Square Ventures has made a lot of big bets on big networks of highly engaged users without a clear biz model. Tumblr and Twitter are the most obvious.

Course, they sold a stake in Twitter on secondary markets already...

we did not sell twitter on "secondary markets"

we do not participate in the "secondary markets"

if we sell, we sell in a financing organized or facilitated by the company we have invested in

In his recent reddit AMA, moot mentioned that Facebook logins would stop being mandatory for Canvas in the future. That would probably expand the userbase significantly, but I'm guessing anonymous users are less likely on average to pay for things.

On a side note, hopefully this won't interfere with the future of 4chan. It's a favorite of mine.

So the FB login is just to set the tone among the early users? Maybe they switch to a Disqus model, with a couple options for identity.

That's good news on all fronts, except I'd like to point out that anonymous users will not always be less likely to pay for things.

The economic catastrophe hit disproportionately hard the age demographics of 4chan, and this in turn has manifested an entire generation of people unwilling (unable) to spend money on anything but necessities.

As the economy recovers, these people will eventually get decent jobs (I am an example of this) and will have money to spend. In the last month, (now that I have blow money) I've bought multiple items from J-List mainly due to their continued support of 4chan over the years. Thanks for supporting one of the last truly great communities on the internet, J-List.

I imagine anonymous users, who are such by choice, are less likely to pay for things purely because it breaks their anonymity.