2008 August

Archive for August, 2008

The New York Giants: Past, Present, & Future

Posted by Devin on August 29th, 2008 No Comments

The NFL season starts on Thursday with Eli Manning and company hosting the Washington Redskins in the NFL Opening Kickoff. The Giants begin defense of their world championship earned earlier this year in Super Bowl XLII. By beating the heavily favored New England Patriots, the Giants added to their already lengthy history.

Now the Giants are letting their fans write the history of the team as well with the New York Giants Official Wiki. Fans can rehash the excitement of the previous seasons, celebrate the great Giant traditions and players from one of the oldest teams in the NFL. Check out every Giant in the Hall of Fame, a list of past and present logos, and uniforms, as well as glances and insight from this year’s training camp.

If you’re a Giant fan, this is the place for you

Keyword Tags: Collaboration, New Media, User Generated Content, Wetpaint, Wikis

Where in the world is Jeff Barr!?!

Posted by Devin on August 29th, 2008 2 Comments

When folks are looking for Jeff Barr over at Amazon Web Services, they don’t really have to go too far to find him. They just visit Amazon Web Services Evangelists to get the latest on his worldly adventures.

Jeff and the rest of the Amazon Web Services team use Wetpaint to let the community plan their travels around the world. If you want someone from AWS to visit you, just jump on the site and request a visit. Jeff and team have been pretty much everywhere spreading AWS goodness and the Wetpaint site has helped them save time on coordination and planning.

While not as complicated as most of his trips, Jeff came down the street to visit Wetpaint and tell us all about the tremendous growth of Amazon Web Services. We’ve been users since the service debuted - every image on Wetpaint is stored in the Amazon cloud. Their service is just awesome.

Kudos and happy travels, Jeff!

Jeff Barr

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

New Features - August 25th Release

Posted by Devin on August 28th, 2008 2 Comments

Along with the new Ad Removal Program, our latest release focused on improving Wetpaint emails which keep your site members coming back to your site.

The latest improvements include matching color schemes, greater use of member avatars, and better subject lines to insure inbox delivery.

Here’s a screen shot example of what the James Bond Wiki email would look like:

Have any feedback for us on the latest release? Let us know on the Aug. 25th Release page at Wetpaint Central!

Keyword Tags: Ad Removal, Events, General, New Features, Social Networking, User Experience, User Generated Content, Web 2.0, Wetpaint, Wikis

Advertising Removal Subscription Program

Posted by Devin on August 27th, 2008 No Comments

We’d absolutely love to be able to talk to our users all day, everyday!

Feedback and new ideas keep on rolling in and we love (ahem) most all of them. One of the more popular, recent suggestions has been to enable site creators to remove the ads from their site (on the left hand column, and even the Wetpaint promotions on the bottom banner). We think that your site should look exactly how you want it to and if you want the option to remove ads, you got it!

Please keep your feedback and suggestions coming, we’re doing our best to make Wetpaint everything you want it to be!

For more information and to get your page ad free visit the Advertising Removal Subscription Program page over at Wetpaint Central.

Keyword Tags: Ad Removal, User Experience, Wetpaint, Wikis

Before you kick the bucket, check your list!

Posted by Devin on August 26th, 2008 No Comments

Ever wanted to go sky diving? Feed some great white sharks? Break a world record?

Those are just a few of the more popular life goals found on the Bucket List community site. People have joined the site, many after the popular movie The Bucket List, to share their lifelong goals with one another for ideas, commentary, and perhaps to find someone who has actually done some of the things on their bucket list to see how exciting they really are. Many have also used the site as a place to store their bucket list while keeping it up to date with photos and descriptions of the experiences for everyone to enjoy.

The community has also come together around encouraging one another to actually step up and accomplish some of the things on their lists. Creating a sense of accountability has driven many members to begin doing things they never thought they would do, or at least wanted to do but couldn’t find the time.

So, if you’ve ever thought of some things you’d like to do, places you like to go, people you’d like to meet, then check out the Bucket List Wiki to find a bunch of ideas!

And check out the movie too, I personally thought it was a pretty good laugh, as well as a pretty good story.

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

Wetpaint takes on the World of Mini-Golf

Posted by Devin on August 25th, 2008 2 Comments

Wetpaint Team Photo
It was a valiant effort by the Wetpaint team, to say the least. After five weeks of hard fought putt-putt golf, the Wetpaint team, dubbed ‘Splat,’ ranked 11th out of 20 teams in the Underdog Sports Leagues’ summer season of ‘Drinks on the Links.’ We finished with a total stroke count of 796 strokes, a mere 97 strokes from the first place prize.

Every Monday afternoon the team of 10 Wetpainters would depart the office amidst cheers and shouts of encouragement from co-workers and make their way to Interbay Golf Club in northern Seattle, where the league was held. The team was a perfect mix of new additions to the Wetpaint crew and veterans of the company, creating a team unity that we’re sure was unmatched in the league. Despite what some may consider being a disappointing finish, i.e. not ending up in the top half of competitors, Wetpaint was proud to buck the trend of larger alcohol consumption leading to a worse standing in the league. A metric was created to show this trend and is shown here:

DotL Graph
Members of Splat were not surprised to find that while an 11th place finish would indicate a mere 110 overall beers in consumption over the five weeks, the team took on much more than that on their way to a ranking better than, perhaps, where they “should” have been, as shown by their spike in the curve. This was, without a doubt, a direct result of most everyone on the squad chalking up several holes in one throughout the season.

Next up, kickball. Stay tuned for updates!

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

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