2008 May

Archive for May, 2008

Wetpaint Honored by OnHollywood 100 Top Private Companies

Posted by TroyJMorris on May 30th, 2008 comments 1 Comment

OnHollywood 100 2008 marks the third year that AlwaysOn has honored 100 of the most innovative privately held technology companies. Together with more than 500 business insiders, the editors at AlwaysOn survey the modern Internet field for the best of the best based on five criteria– innovation, market potential, customer adoption, media buzz and investor value creation.

This year, Wetpaint is among the honored, along with our new Wetpaint Injected partner, Flixster!

Keyword Tags: New Media, Web 2.0, Events, General, Wetpaint

Wiki Profile - China Earthquake Relief Fund

Posted by TroyJMorris on May 26th, 2008 comments 1 Comment

On May 12, 2008, a 7.9 earthquake shattered the Sichuan Provence in China. It was the largest earthquake to hit China in over 30 years. The natural disaster left horrific devastation in its wake: towns have been ravaged, the death toll counts more than 50,000 people, well over a quarter-million are injured, and nearly 5 million Chinese citizens are now homeless.

China Earthquake Relief Fund

What’s being done to help? Immediate relief is well-funded (both internationally and by the Chinese government) however,many Chinese immigrants in the United States are concerned about what will happen after these rescue resources are gone. Two members of the Chinese community, Berlin Fan and Shuhua Chan, decided to take action into their own hands.

Fang, of Oklahoma Christian University and Chan, of Marshall University in West Virginia, have already begun a fund-raising to rebuild a school in the affected Provence. With a fund-raising goal of $50,000, they have already raised almost $1,000 in just a few days.

While fund-raising, Fang cited many local Chinese communities’ disillusionment over donations to bigger charities going mostly towards overhead and management rather than directly to the plight. He noted the communities would rather give funds to trusted members to ensure that their donations go where they are needed most. Using their connections within the community and their wiki, Fang and Chan have been actively reaching out to friends in communities across the U.S. to become local coordinators to aid in the fund-raising effort.

Join the wiki and find out all the ways you can help by visiting earthquakechildren.wetpaint.com

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

Wiki Profile - Urban Plein Air

Posted by TroyJMorris on May 23rd, 2008 comments 1 Comment

In Scappoose, Oregon, a scant 20 miles Northwest of Portland, Oregon, lives an artist named Maeona Urban who has been painting with classical realism for over 40 years. When she wanted to share her artwork with the world and other artists she turned Wetpaint and created the Urban Plein Air wiki on Wetpaint. According to Urban, Wetpaint’s “flexibility” was the reason she signed up.

This blogger is a personal fan of her cowboy portraits. Which are your favorite pieces of artwork?

Keyword Tags: User Generated Content, General, Wikis, Wetpaint, Art

All sites will be social sites

Posted by Ben on May 18th, 2008 6 Comments

The last couple of weeks have seen pronouncements about making the entire Web - not just social networking sites - more social, where everyone can connect and interact easily.

There have been some impressive announcements to enable frictionless social grease - Google, MySpace, and Facebook all agree it’s the future - and of course the expected fights.

But it’s all grease and no engine. The social ‘grease’ of connections isn’t what we should be looking at to take us forward. The big step comes when anyone, on any site, can not only connect but actually do something - together. From my perspective, that something is social publishing. Social publishing is the new Web frontier. That big step comes today.Social publishing is about letting users be your authors. It owes huge thanks to the social networking phenomena. With social networking, millions upon millions of internet users have become comfortable finding, connecting, and interacting online. And as those folks mature online, they have started asking “Now what?” It’s a logical question - how much value really is created when the only thing you can do together is poke, bite, or friend someone?Social publishing is the answer to “now what?” With social publishing, anyone can create, collect, and organize content anywhere online.

And by anywhere I mean any website. The notion that a 100% professionally authored, locked down website will be relevant in 5 year’s time is patently absurd. People’s expectations are changing and they expect to interact and create content alongside professionally authored content. And audiences will want this experience as well. Sites that don’t participate will be left behind. While there will always be a place online for top-tier professional journalists and authors, time is short for websites that don’t invite and celebrate user-generated content that seamlessly exists alongside.

Until now, it was easy for publishers to ignore the trend. They would argue that none of their readers wanted to contribute or the technology was too complicated and expensive to implement. Both of those excuses are gone. Every day, more and more proof points demonstrate the value of user-generated content. And today, with the announcement of Wetpaint Injected, the technology to unleash zero-cost create potential is as easy as a couple of snippets of code. The Wetpaint vision of every site on the web being a social site where people connect and do more together is not far off.

I’m proud that Wetpaint is in a unique position to lead this transformation. And to the sites that fight the wave, the writing will soon be on the wall. And I bet the writing will be written collaboratively.

Keyword Tags: New Media, Social Networking, Collaboration, User Generated Content, Wetpaint

Webby Award Winners

Posted by dustinw on May 14th, 2008 2 Comments

With most big web gatherings, the only red carpet you’ll witness is after the cocktail waitress spills the red wine tray on the floor, and the only celebrity sightings are contained within a powerpoint slide.

Webby Winner But once a year, the community of web professionals commonly dubbed “geek” become rather chic. The Webby Awards take place in June and are known as the Oscars of the Internet. Being a judge for the awards, I’ve had the pleasure of attending two Webby Award Gala events and must say there is no higher honor and no grander event for a web professional.

Back in March, I was pleasantly surprised to see the T-Mobile Sidekick wiki on the ballot for judges to choose from– not because it meant I could skip judging the telecommunications category due to the obvious conflict of interest, but rather because it’s a great Wetpaint website run by Sidekick enthusiasts.

Looks like the other judges agree, as the T-Mobile Sidekick wiki has officially won a 2008 Webby. Congratulations to the Sidekick wiki members for growing the site, T-Mobile for sponsoring the site, and Wetpaint for making it all possible!

Now the only question is, when we stand up on stage with the likes of Stephen Colbert, Michel Gondry, and Mark Zuckerber, what should our five-word acceptance speech be?

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

Super Painter Spotlight: just_tonya

Posted by Michael on May 13th, 2008 comments 1 Comment

Meet just_tonya: a research scientist by day and wiki whiz by night (and weekends too) whose many talents include music (flute, organ, harpsichord and piano), hula (she placed 3rd in a hula contest in college), and hog calling (yep, hog calling)! We asked Tonya, one of our most prolific Super Painters, why she’s so passionate about makin’ wiki. Here’s what she had to say:

“I was ecstatic to learn of wikis. After I completed my research project, I had a file cabinet full of information that was helping no one sitting in my house. Wikis allowed me to easily create a website to share my information with others. By building a community for the site, each team is able to help keep the information up-to-date. Although I have been a techie — it’s almost impossible to keep up with all the advances in Web technology in my current job. So, using a wiki service released me from that burden: a site easy to create, where I could involve non-techies, with no need to worry about software installation/upgrades or servers, plus it was FREE!”

Stop by one of Tonya’s many wikis and say hi!

Everything Wiki | Bucket Lists | O Mania (an Oprah fan site!)

Keyword Tags: User Generated Content, User Experience, General, Wikis, Wetpaint, Fun

Wetpaint Party - Deadliest Catch V.I.P.

Posted by TroyJMorris on May 12th, 2008 No Comments

We heart rolling out the red carpet for our Superpainters. 40 lucky Official Deadliest Catch Fan Site star contributors and their guests gained entry to VIP parties hosted by the Discovery Channel in Philadelphia and Seattle after winning the site’s Superfan Sweepstakes .

Some of the winners traveled from as far as Philadelphia, PA and Juno, AK to attend the Seattle bash at Duke’s on Alki. There they got to swap stories with their favorite crab boat captains and crew members. A handful of folks from Wetpaint were also lucky enough to attend the seafood soiree and here follows our accounting of the evening in pictures:

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Keyword Tags: User Experience, Events, General, Wetpaint, Fun

Happy Mother’s Day from Wetpaint

Posted by TroyJMorris on May 9th, 2008 2 Comments

Mother’s Day is this Sunday (yes, this Sunday) and in case you ran out of painted macaroni shells to string together the most beautiful necklace and bracelet ever donned, Wetpaint has your Mother’s Day needs covered.

We created a template you can use to show your mother how much you love her. Sure, she may not be able to hang it on the fridge door, but she can email it out to her entire address book and say, “My baby did this just for me!” She’ll undoubtedly be the envy of all her friends.

And if you need some inspiration, check out this awesome example that one family crafted for their mother, the “Double Saint:”

Now show your mother some love with Wetpaint. You can make her macaroni accessories next year.

Keyword Tags: User Experience, General, Wikis, Wetpaint, Fun

Wiki Profile - Simply Irresistibly Sudoku

Posted by TroyJMorris on May 8th, 2008 comments 1 Comment

If you haven’t heard of Sudoku by now, you’ve definitely been living under a rock. Come out from under there, friend, and don’t forget to grab a pencil with a decent eraser– it’s time to catch the Sudoku fever on the Simply Sudoku wiki. Masters of Sudoku are also encouraged to jump on board, test their skills, and help monitor other budding Sudoku-lytes.

If you haven’t picked up what we’re puttin’ down, ‘Sudoku’ is not LoLSpeak, not a disease cured on House, nor a mythical creature. It is, however, an insanely addictive numbers game that became an international sensation after the Times of London started publishing daily games.

Find out more at Simply Sudoku. Our favorite Sudoku wiki is chock-full of strategies, tips, links to games, explanations, lessons, unique versions, and just about anything else Sudoku-related. Some advice before you venture off, dear reader! It is very likely you will lose a few hours playing around and exploring the site. There, you’ve officially been warned…

Keyword Tags: Social Networking, Web 2.0, General, Wikis, Wetpaint, Fun

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