Catherine Rubino is an author, stand-up performer and TV comedy writer. She also runs The Snooze and you may also have noticed that, in a male-dominated comedy web world, she's a woman. Here she runs through some of the things to consider when building a simple site.

Share and enjoy
The point of The Snooze is simply to share funny stories and ideas. It started as a letter that I sent to my brother and sister to tell them the latest news at home, usually about the tension between my parents and Italian grandmother, such as 'The Mystery of Grandma's Missing ToeNail Clipper'. And later when there were more subscribers I re-started it online.

Work, work, work...
Having a site can involved a lot of archiving. I build the site on my computer, save it to disk, and then upload the pages (FTP) to my host server when I feel like it. So when I write the latest articles, I update the links on the old pages (especially the index page) and then load them up – replacing the old. If I want something off I delete it. But, it does get to be a lot of HTML pages. When organising the site, you want to be smart and plan ahead. For example, create a separate folder for images. My current host company offers me 200MB. I currently use 2-3MB for The Snooze. 200Mb is a lot!

Backsides, pantylines
I use a host company that offers me web statistics so I can see who visited, for how long and when. Once I went in on the 'backside' to see who was reading The Snooze and what they searched for. I was surprised to find that a scientist at NASA was searching for 'visible+panty+line' and had found himself, perhaps slightly disappointed, reading an old letter sent in by a reader who mentioned 'panty line' for some reason. So, as an experiment, I made a 'visible panty line' site where you had to pay $2 to get in and read it. I made $4. But that's not the point. The point is, now when I go in to see who's visiting, half of the hits are for that page. HALF!. So for that reason, I keep on. To have something online that IS clean fun and free for anyone – well, the other HALF.

Copyrights and Copywrongs
In terms of web comedy, it's got to have funny material and a clean layout. Photos are really important, provided they load fast and they're YOURS!!! Using someone else's photos, could get you into trouble.

One of my writers sent in a hilarious article and included some photos. That page was not even up for 15 minutes when the owner of the photos contacted me, angry that I had infringed on his copyright and stolen his work. But I didn't know (it's no defence – ed), nor did the writer (neither is that – ed). So I quickly pulled the photos off, found some ones of old great aunt Harriette (God rest her soul) and doctored them up in Photoshop. I put her on a horse named Paddy (who I once rode through Ireland). So far Paddy hasn't complained. (Copyright laws also apply to horses – Mr ed.)