2008 March

Archive for March, 2008

How to Optimize Your Wetpaint Wiki

Posted by TroyJMorris on March 31st, 2008 2 Comments

wetpaint topcoats Pretend you hear some celebratory trumpeting noises here because we’re about to introduce you, dear readers, to something amazing. We here at Wetpaint have created a new program to give some of our sites on the network the opportunity to be the best they can be. We’re calling it Topcoats and we’re pretty gosh-darn excited about the whole thing.

The goal of Topcoats is to provide select sites with the opportunity to collaborate with our editors and other Topcoat members to get the most bang out of their out of their wiki. Sites that participate will get help with their site organization, content development, design– and even help promoting sites on our network and beyond (which means more visitors)!

To apply send an email to info@wetpaint.com with the word “Topcoats” in the subject line. At that point, you’ll be able to visit the Topcoats wiki for all the nitty-gritty. To qualify, your wiki is going to need to be at least 30 days old. We’re not able to help build a wiki from the ground up; we’re only able to add some finishing touches (i.e., topcoat). You can check out all the details over at Wetpaint Central.

Hope to see you there!

Keyword Tags: User Experience, Collaboration, Wikis, Wetpaint

Can a Wiki Save Jericho… AGAIN?!

Posted by TroyJMorris on March 25th, 2008 4 Comments

If you haven’t heard of this ‘Cinderella’ story before, allow me to bring you up to date. Back in May of 2007, after it’s premier season, CBS canceled the prime-time post-apocalyptic show. While new shows come and go, Jericho managed to amass itself a massive and, some would say, rabid online following.

Our Wetpaint servers went into overdrive after every episode and I’m pretty sure we saw some smoke plumes after the show was canceled last year. The die-hard fans were not willing to witness the show they love go quietly into the night. They began their protest ideas on their wiki and wound up sending 20 tons of nuts and a whole lot of letters to the network. CBS got the message and renewed the show for a 2nd season.

The second season was off to a great start thanks to the buzz surrounding the show of people power that brought it back. But alas, it looks like after a month, Jericho has been canceled once more. And once again, our servers are humming loudly. We expect it to get even louder tonight during the final episode.

The Jericho “nutters” are rallying the grassroots troops to find the beloved sci-fi show a new home. Any and all ideas are welcome to help save this great show.

Go check out the final Jericho episode tonight on CBS at 10pm on the coasts and update the Jericho wiki here while the show is airing. Who knows, you may be missing your favorite show and not even know it yet.

Keyword Tags: New Media, User Experience, Web 2.0, User Generated Content, Wikis, General, Wetpaint

Introducing the Wetpaint 500

Posted by TroyJMorris on March 19th, 2008 2 Comments

For those of you Wetpainters out there who subscribe to our Weekly Digests, you’re very familiar with our Top 500 sites. To those who aren’t subscribed to our Weekly Digests, we give you Wetpaint 500 on Wetpaint Central.

The Top 500 ranked sites are based on total number of contributions, so the more active the wiki, the higher it jumps on the list. With over 750,000 sites, this list represents the most passionate wikis around. Want to get your wiki on the list or higher up the list? Yeah, figured you might. Check out a couple of tips to get your wiki rocking.

The next time you’re at your family’s house for a holiday dinner and they ask how’s your wiki doing, you can simply bring up the page and and say “Well… looks like we’re ranked 33 this week.” Then you can go ahead and grab another slice of pie. You earned it.

Wiki on!

Keyword Tags: Social Networking, General, Wikis, Wetpaint, Fun

Erin-Go-Wiki: Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Posted by TroyJMorris on March 17th, 2008 3 Comments

Yeah. You knew it had to be coming. No major holiday should pass without a wish of merriment from the Wetpaint Crew to you– Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I’m not sure if it’s the Irish in me, that our office has a certain color all over, or that our HQ is in the Emerald City, but this certainly is shaping up to be a grand day. In the spirit of the holiday, I’ll go ahead and spread the Irish by linking you to a few great St. Paddy’s Day Wikis:

An incredibly extensive page of St. Patrick’s Day around the world.
Great ideas for children’s St. Patrick’s Day parties.
A few Guinness commercials for the grown-ups.
Even a little Irish Charm for your pup.

And if we may leave you with a bit of advice our dear friend Author Unknown - “Never iron a four-leaf clover because you don’t want to press your luck.”

Keyword Tags: General, Wetpaint, Fun

Around Wetpaint - Rally and Retreat

Posted by TroyJMorris on March 14th, 2008 2 Comments

There’s a lot going on around HQ today.

Many of us are headed out to a retreat up in Whistler, British Columbia. Hopefully, there will be no injuries.
Budde’s new Wetpaint Talk Show starts at 6pm ET/3pm PT — topics this week include the latest Wetpaint release and his guest will be our very own Alex Berg.
Techcrunch is hosting a poll about the best wiki software out there. Vote early and vote often.

Keyword Tags: Events, Web 2.0, General, Wikis, Wetpaint, Fun

Wetpaint Fans Have Been Heard

Posted by TroyJMorris on March 13th, 2008 2 Comments

We asked and you certainly answered.

We’ve received a lot of great feedback about our recent release, which isn’t too surprising, considering it was chock-full of fantastic feature enhancements. We did things like make Wetpaint even more social, added a What’s New site activity dashboard, revamped the page layout to give members more room to do their thing, removed some ads, rolled out some cool tools to help creators get more traffic, (*whew*) and more. Most of the response has been overwhelmingly positive — however, a few tears were shed for one feature that was removed.

Our “out with the old, in with the new” spirit motivated a decision to fold the home page Recent Site Activity module (formerly located in the right-hand column) into the brand-new What’s New site area. While the What’s New dashboard provides approximately 1,726 times the awesome, many among the Wetpaint faithful liked the “at a glance” nature of the Recent Site Activity module.

So what’s a company to do? Duh… listen up and do something about it! So in answer to your feedback, we’re restoring the Site Activity Module to the home page, though in a new location. Look for it in the next few days in the left-hand column, where you presently see the “To-Dos” access point (which will move up into the horizontal navigation menu bar).

So Wetpainters, keep giving us suggestions — we’re listening.

Keyword Tags: User Experience, General, Wikis, Wetpaint

Wetpaint Goes Social

Posted by Kevin on March 10th, 2008 2 Comments

Today we officially launched a suite of new features making Wetpaint a whole lot more social than ever before. Tipping our hat to the social networking phenomena, we’ve incorporated many of the features that keep social networkers engaged and coming back for more. We think that with the user frequency typical of many social networks, combined with the ability to do so much more together on a Wetpaint site, creates the ideal environment for online communities.

Social networking is amazing for creating connections between like-minded individuals. The typical behavior on social networking sites that keep people coming back time and again is high volume temporal messaging - “What are you doing?” “What did you think of what they just said?” While tremendously valuable in the moment, the content has little value to people outside the inner-most circle and even less value over time. When you add up all those posts, you’re left with the online equivalent of a collection of Post-it notes.

Wikis, on the other hand, are amazing at creating content that has long term value to the immediate creators and viewing audiencs alike, but the social experience on most wikis - let’s see, how best to put this - not so great. While content is celebrated, little is done to recognize the creators, their contributions, or the collective espirit de corps of the group working together to build something of lasting value. Beyond that, the instantaneous communication, connection, and coordination so prevalent on social networks are completely missing from wikis. Without that, creating content that has value is, at best, difficult to do. To make ends meet, wiki users are forced to make do and improvise.

Well, we say no more. We’ve integrated the best aspects of social networks with the best-in-class collaborative authoring tools of Wetpaint. It just makes sense - the people coming together on Wetpaint sites want to connect, communicate, and collaborate. and when that happens (and here’s the cool part), they end up attracting more and more users to the site who are interested in the content. It’s the lookiloos who end up being the new members and contributors to the community. Through a greater audience comes the new lifeblood of the community.

You can read more about the new Wetpaint features on Wetpaint Central. So go make some friends and craft some content together!

Keyword Tags: Social Networking, Web 2.0, Collaboration, User Generated Content, Wikis, Wetpaint

Wetpaint Wiki Community for “Luke and Noah” Fans Ignites National Media Storm

Posted by TroyJMorris on March 5th, 2008 No Comments

Those who love the daytime soap opera As the World Turns have been upset recently about the tepid portrayal of their favorite daytime couple, Luke Snyder and Noah Mayer. Luke and Noah made a splash over six months ago when they shared an onscreen kiss. Since that fateful afternoon, the characters haven’t shown any affection warmer than a hug.

The less-than-balanced representation and development of a same-sex relationship on the daytime drama has some of the more passionate viewers of the show more than a little upset. Already having a wiki community dedicated to documenting Luke and Noah’s budding relationship, a group of fans decided to air their gripe to get the attention of CBS executives. They launched their own very successful media blitz to campaign for a more serious portrayal of Luke and Noah’s relationship. Their campaign of equality has been covered in media outlets ranging from the Boston Globe to NPR — and news of it even made it into the international press. Site co-creator Natalie shared her excitement with us, saying, “I’m completely honored, and wonderfully surprised by the impact of our efforts. What our Luke and Noah fanbase has done so far has been amazing. Having Wetpaint on our side, ready and willing to help, is astonishing.”

This is not the first time we’ve seen a Wetpaint wiki-centered campaign used to convince network decision-makers to listen to their loyal viewership. The CBS series Jericho was in part saved from cancellation by its passionate viewers through a similar online campaign through the official Jericho Wetpaint Wiki. Wikis foster and unite online community and communities generate people-powered change.

To read up on the media coverage surrounding the Luke and Noah fans’ campaign, head on over to the wiki. Congratulations, “Nuke” fans, on the success of your efforts! It just goes to show that Wetpaint Wikis really do have “people power.”

Keyword Tags: New Media, User Experience, User Generated Content, General, Wikis, Wetpaint

A Wiki Profile - Strictly wikiVegan

Posted by TroyJMorris on March 4th, 2008 comments 1 Comment

I attended the wedding of a long-time friend (24 years and counting…) this last weekend and was surprised to hear that he had become a vegetarian. Not that I was terribly concerned, free food is free food, but I did start thinking about the re-emergence of this dietary trend. Vegetarianism and Veganism seems to creep further and further into the mainstream with each passing day.

Of course, once a person takes note of a trend, that person manages to see it popping up everywhere, and so it remains true in the Wiki World. I recently came across wikiVegan. Acting as a resource for vegans to get information about where they can go to eat out, where to shop for foods and goods, or even vegan friendly places to shop online, wikiVegan is a great site for Vegans everywhere.

Veganism may not be for everyone, but these folks do a beautiful job of managing a wiki that is chock-full of information. Heck, they even had a contest for their wiki logo. So if you ever find yourself at Dodger Stadium watching a game, head over to wikiVegan to find out how you can get yourself a soy hot dog.

Keyword Tags: Social Networking, Web 2.0, User Generated Content, General, Wikis, Wetpaint

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