The App Laugh.ly Is Trying To Be The Pandora Of Standup Comedy — Here’s Why You Should Download It

“The only difference between you and Michael Douglas from the movie Wall Street,” notes comedian Anthony Jeselnik about Donald Trump in one of his epic standup routines. “…is that nobody’s going to be sad when you get cancer.”

And whether that’s true or not – and at this point, odds are on the truthful end – this joke and thousands of others from about 400 of the top comedians in America are now available through a new mobile app.

Free to use and available on iOS, Android and any Web browser, the new Laugh.ly is the first and only streaming app built from the ground-up for stand-up comedy with the most extensive comedy library available accessed through deals with Comedy Central, some of the largest media publishers in comedy, and direct relationships with A-list comedians.

“Comedians work hard to develop content and getting material in front of new fans is challenging,” says Alonzo Bodden, the comedian best known for winning the third season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. “I’m excited to have another venue to get my work out to the public.”

Comedy, of course, is subjective. I love Amy Schumer, but even before we found out he is a deplorable rapist, never quite got Bill Cosby while some people have loved the man and his Jello Pudding forever. I didn’t even know Sinbad was a comedian, but even today the dude still sells out good-size theaters. I could listen to Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman for hours upon hours but Joe Rogan – well – Joe Rogan should’ve stuck to having people eat oddities on Fear Factor.

The point being that an app like Laugh.ly lets anyone sort through upwards of 20,000 standup comedy routines and choose what works for you. How’s that?

Whereas Laugh.ly compares to a standup version of Pandora, Pandora matches tones of tracks to build music stations. Laugh.ly, on the other hand, is about context. Over three years they transcribed every track from speech to text and then studied it to find the context of the joke. This allows Laugh.ly to build stations within the app based on subject matter. So if you want to build a comedy channel around dick jokes or Donald Trump jokes or Donald Trump dick jokes – you choose your own adventure.

All of this is the brainchild of Dave Scott, a Silicon Valley veteran and amateur comic who simply wanted to find a better way to deliver quality comedic content.

“I realized how important comedy is to people and how hard it was to access it,” says Scott. “I also realized that comedians are extremely poor for a very long time. Comedians have no idea how to gain exposure and build audience, making this a hard and unpredictable journey.”

And his point about comedians being broke is an essential feature of the platform as it allows struggling standups to upload and self-publish comedy albums of their own.

Just emerging from a three-week beta, early reviews have been very good. Active users rated the app an average 4.8 out of 5 stars and average active usage totaled 46 minutes per day. And during the beta, ginger-headed Louis C.K. was the most listened to comedian across tens of thousands of listened hours and had three of the top 10 most listened to albums.

Users will initially have two primary listening options: Ad-supported listening free of charge or a premium service called “Front Row Seating” for $3.99 per month. Scott, who poured his life savings into Laugh.ly to see his vision come to fruition, just hopes comedy fans embrace it.

“After such positive feedback in beta, we can’t wait to see comedy lovers everywhere start to use the product,” he says. “You’re welcome, America!”

WATCH: How Broad City Took Over Comedy