WetPaint Archive

Wiki provider Wetpaint has announced a partnership with HP to bring two branded Wikis to their customers: a Home/Home Office option and a Small/Medium business option.

“We are dedicated to helping brands employ the social computing aspects of Wetpaint to directly collaborate and communicate with their customers,” says Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. “We know that consumers are ready to participate actively with brands in an organic, unscripted fashion, so we are excited to work together with HP to continue to define a new set of standards for customer interaction and care.”

This is an excellent social advertising option as it gets HP customers engaged with each other around a topic (printing projects) while keeping the HP brand relative to fostering the conversation. Brands are looking for ways to engage consumers and we will see more of these “communities” sprout up as social media becomes more mainstream.

Here are my suggestions from a marketing standpoint. First, the HP logo should replace the Wetpaint logo in the top left position. This campaign is about HP first, Wetpaint second. Next, does this really need to be called a “Wiki”? For the casual HP customer, I doubt they understand (nor care) what the term means. Why not just allow people to edit without classifying the site?

And if you want a little humor in your day, here is one of the Wetpaint vs. Wiki videos currently running on YouTube:

Wetpaint will announce tomorrow morning the launch of their Facebook app which is a Wiki creator tool. called "Wiki Whiteboard". It’s basically as simple to use as the main Wetpaint site.  You can install the app now by going to the Wiki Whiteboard app page.

This could be a hot app (if they can overcome my frustrations below) as it’s using Facebook friends as the authentication instead of having to create yet another group of friends. And it could be a great addition for groups who already are part of Facebook. What I don’t know is if you can add a Wiki on top of an already created Facebook group or if you have to exit the group to enter the Wiki.

After you create the desired Wiki name, you are presented with a site wizard that can prefill pages in the following categories:

• Class Notes
• Party Planner
• Spring Break Planner
• Dorm Hall Wiki
• Video Collection
• Group Project
• Fraternity and Sorority

From tomorrow’s release, “Close to 40 million people have turned to Facebook to connect with others, whether to keep in touch with friends, upload photos, and share videos or just to learn more abut the people they’ve met,” said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. “With Wiki Whiteboard by Wetpaint, Facebook users now can connect in deeper ways through collaborative content creation around favorite topics or events without leaving Facebook and without needing to be an expert in wiki syntax or HTML.”

The newly-created Wiki is jammed into a small space which also includes a Google ad for monetization making the space relatively small and vertical and horizontal scrollbars appeared for me. Also, the popup windows for editing also have to remain in the small width of Facebook’s overall width.

This app moves the war between pbWiki and Wetpaint one notch further. Let’s see what pbWiki counters with!

Here is a sample screenshot of the Wiki Whiteboard I setup:

Wetpaint, a provider of hosted Wikis, today has launched a site templating feature to its feature lineup. It's basically a combo of themes plus default pages to make site creation easy for groups that normally may have a difficult time getting up and running online. This is another step in the battle of the hosted Wikis between PBwiki and Wetpaint. Wetpaint claims over 500,000 wikis created however no reported number on active wikis.

"In five years' time, every group initiative will have its own Website where members can share ideas, collaborate, and coordinate in ways that we're just starting to realize and appreciate today," said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. "Our mission is to be the Wiki platform of choice for these groups and to make it extremely easy for anyone to create a collaborative Website or a community around any purpose or passion."

From the release: Uniquely developed to help consumers immediately incorporate the best aspects of blogs, social networks, and message boards into their own personal Website or online community, the new site templates include options for parent-teacher groups, classrooms, team projects, weddings, book clubs, gaming clans, groups of friends, and sports teams. Included in these options are preformatted content pages, site navigation structures, Wiki tips, and other inspiring suggestions that new site creators can adopt or adapt as soon as they arrive at their newly created Wetpaint site.

What I like about Wetpaint is that its easy to get up-and-running and manage a Web site where you can distribute the editing rights across a group. Reminds me of the old days and Geocities, just 100x better. It's important that they continue to add new and interesting design templates otherwise the Wikis will get boring fast. Check out our other Wetpaint coverage along with my interview with CEO Ben Elowitz and Marketing Director Kevin Flaherty.

Wetpaint is announcing this morning that they will now offer private wikis for Wetpaint users. So if you want to protect your Wiki, you can do it now with Wetpaint. 

“Fundamentally, Wikis are about openness, dialogue, and interaction.  However, there are any number of situations where those things need to happen privately,” said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint.  “Now anyone can build a private Wetpaint Wiki Website as an online meeting place for their closest family, friends, and associates while also enjoying the benefits of the extended public Wetpaint community.”

Wetpaint is also launching a new search feature which uses YouTube for video search and Yahoo for image search to help you find the content you are looking for.

Check our previous Wetpaint coverage »

The battle of the Wiki heavyweights continues between Wetpaint and PBwiki. Today PBwiki notes on their blog that several new features have been added to their already quite impressive lineup.

The features include:

• Spreadsheets
• Voice chat
• Event-planning
• Calendars
• Video upload

The hosted Wiki space is heating up. The days of Mediawiki and it's hard to use WikiTML are over for the average user. Last week Wetpaint launched WikiPaint (officially named Wetpaint Please Touch) and now PBwiki adds more business and organizational tools. I called 2007 the "year of the wiki" and I continue to stand by that statement. Are there other players in this hosted Wiki space that I should be reporting on? Let me know in the comments.

And don't forget to check out the startup tips from PBwiki CEO, David Weekly.

Wetpaint, a Wiki provider has launched a new tool this morning. Named Wetpaint Please Touch, the tool is like a Wiki but for art. The idea is rather simple. You create a piece of art in a Microsoft Paint style. After you have finished your masterpiece, you can either send it off to the online gallery or send it to a friend who can continue your work. And it becomes a group art piece and everyone can update and so forth. It's a fun little app!

Check out my video review below. One of the things I can see happening is someone uploads a picture of the side of a subway/tube car and then we can all paint graffiti on it like it was 1980!

If you create a piece of art using the tool, post a link in the comments so we can view your masterpiece and then edit it away!

Wetpaint continues to impress me as the leader in the user-friendly wiki market. Today they have added customizable navigation to the service. The Customizable Navigation helps consumers "configure pages in chronological, alphabetical, numerical, hierarchical, or totally random order."

“We continually aim to give consumers the personalization options and features they need to build a Wiki that enables them to collaborate with other like-minded people and tailor their sites to meet their community’s expectations,” said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. “Customizable navigation further advances our consumers' ability to build a Wiki that truly reflects their most passionate interests.”

I believe that companies such as Wetpaint who are innovating the wiki space will force Wikipedia to make their site more user-friendly. For example, I really don't want to have to learn a new language just to edit the Transformers Wikipedia page.

Check out our other Wetpaint coverage.