Beginning as a webzine, the site featured weekly comedy articles from Sir John Hargrave and a host of collaborators.

After the cancellation of Computer Stew in 2001, ZUG returned full force, with a redesigned site, a daily blog from Hargrave, and aggressive viral marketing tactics (such as an online ballot-stuffing campaign at HBO's Aspen Comedy Festival, which resulted in ZUG paralyzing the HBO servers and being disqualified from the contest).

ZUG Live, which was billed as "The World's Funniest Comedy Community", was a thriving online forum where users discuss every topic imaginable, with each poster able to give and receive "funny points", which are formally known as "ZUGZ", or commonly referred to as "orbs".

The ZUG Live software, which had been built entirely in-house, features humorous touches like the "Swearbot", which automatically turned swear words into the names of famous poets.

Still, many threads had coarse language or adult discussions, so ZUG Live required its users to be over 18 years of age before they were given posting privileges.