Can a Pig with Bread Wings Make the World Suck Less?

Imagine you're just a few years out of school. You and a friend have created a web platform beloved by a massive cohort of like-minded folks, and you've made a bunch of money convincing one of the biggest media players that they should scoop that property up. What do you do next? If you're like Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, the answer is you create an "uncorporation" trying to make the world a better place.

Founded in 2005, Reddit was one of the earliest Y Combinator-supported companies, and an early version of the community-news-aggregators that have become a normal part of today's social web. The company was acquired in 2006 by Conde Nast and, unlike so many startups that get bought, actually continued to be an important site -- particularly for the tech community that calls Reddit home.

Since formally "retiring" from the company (as he puts it) in October of 2009, however, Ohanian has been connecting his geek side with his inner world changer -- including a three-month stint as a Kiva Fellow in Armenia -- with some interesting results. Namely, Breadpig.

At first just a holding URL for their as-yet-unnamed company, Breadpig resurfaced as a moniker for the set of projects that Ohanian (and his band of merry men) have put together. Rather than operating as a traditional company -- or any sort of recognizable nonprofit, for that matter -- Breadpig is more like a collection of creative vignettes.

One of the more noticed project so far was WTFCNN.com, a site that allows you to compare CNN.com's headlines (which increasingly shill out dumbed-down content) versus other major news sites. The site got written up on TechCrunch and visited by hundreds of thousands.

Maybe the most interesting thing they're up to, though, is a new approach to publishing. They published the first ever book edition of the popular internet comic xkcd, and in the process toppled the normal publishing method on its head. First, the author of xkcd got a majority of the profits. Second, the slice of the profits that Breadpig took, they donated to Room to Read. So far, they've given away a little over $90,000.

The xkcd book isn't just interesting from the standpoint of the donations, but from the shift in the publishing model. It simply made more sense -- given the comics devoted online following -- to sell and distribute the book through the website rather than wasting marketing dollars (not to mention giving up most of the royalties) getting it on shelves where it would languish.

I think that we're going to see more and more of this self-publishing -- particularly on the part of those writers who have built an audience online over time. Breadpig has at least one other work in the pipeline.

So, what to take away from all of this? First, even transgenomic pigs can be a great brand if people associate it with cool things. Second, social entrepreneurship looks and sounds different in different places, but continues to grow as a hallmark of this generation. Third, trying crazy ideas beats bottling them up.

Check out Breadpig.com to keep up with their latest adventures.

Photo credit: breadpig.com