SOURCE: Wetpaint

May 19, 2008 00:01 ET

Wetpaint Injected Instantly Transforms Any Website Into a Socially Published Supersite

New Embeddable Social Publishing Platform Supercharges Websites With User-Generated Content to Drive SEO, Audience, Customer Engagement, and Ad Revenues

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - May 19, 2008) - Wetpaint, the leader in social publishing with nearly one million hosted user-powered sites, today announced its award-winning platform can now be seamlessly embedded into any website to accelerate user-generated content creation. The company is releasing Wetpaint Injected on the same day it announces a $25 million Series C round of funding which it will use to accelerate adoption and achieve its vision of making every site on the Web socially published. Going beyond IFrame and widget-based approaches, Wetpaint Injected instantly adds an easy-to-use toolset that enables users to author and edit content directly on the site, which means that search engines fully index and credit the content to the host site. The result is an expanded and ever-growing content footprint that attracts new audiences and generates incremental revenue. Flixster, IGN.com, and NuWire Investor have already begun using the new Wetpaint Injected service.

"We're excited to be working with Wetpaint to introduce wiki capabilities to the Flixster community. The core of the Flixster community is enabling millions of movie fans to rate, review and discover films through their friends and movie fans. Our experience has been that every time we have provided our community with tools for self expression the results and creativity of our users have been incredible," said Steven Polsky, president and COO at Flixster. "The added engagement is not only beneficial to our users; it's extremely valuable to our business."

With best-in-class functionality, ease of integration, and versatility, Wetpaint Injected is implemented with server-side includes that enable an easy publishing experience right from any area or page of a website. With core features like content editing, keyword tagging, activity feeds, hierarchical page management, and the ability to embed images, video, and other widgets, Wetpaint Injected delivers three primary benefits:

--  Social publishing that grows audience and increases member engagement.
    
    Wetpaint Injected instantly makes sites fully social.  Passionate users can
    easily author highly relevant unique content, within designated pages or on
    new pages they add to the site. Wetpaint Injected sites flourish as search
    engine visits grow and deeply engaged reader-writers keep coming back to
    enjoy the content they helped create.
    
--  Unmatched search engine optimization to drive audience and new
    revenues.
    
    With Wetpaint Injected, the host website accrues full search engine credit
    for all content added.  As users create more topical and naturally search
    engine-optimized information, the website's search footprint expands.
    Through increased keyword coverage, Wetpaint Injected-augmented websites
    draw more visitors and associated advertising revenues.
    
--  Brand control and customization.
    
    From matching a host site's look and feel, to controlling who can
    contribute, to monitoring what is actually going across the user
    contribution areas, to leveraging a single sign-in system, website
    operators get social publishing on their terms with very low integration
    burden and technical maintenance.
    

Wetpaint: The Largest Network of Social Sites

With the largest network of nearly one million social sites consisting of half a billion total contributions, Wetpaint has discovered the formula to inspire and empower everyday Internet users to publish together online. With the availability of Wetpaint Injected, the company extends its proven technology to any publisher who wishes to make their site fully social.

"Wetpaint Injected solves the monumental task of creating content for the long tail," said Kevin Akira Lee, vice president of product at IGN.com. "By partnering with Wetpaint, we can focus on our core expertise -- delivering industry-leading editorial for videogames and entertainment -- while relying on a proven social publishing platform that empowers our customers to produce vast amounts of user-generated content."

"In the not-too-far-distant future, every website will be a social website. Wetpaint Injected is the first major step in pioneering that transformation," said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. "Until now, publishers have had to choose between joining someone else's social network or investing hundreds of thousands of dollars and significant integration resources to graft social features onto their existing property. With Wetpaint Injected, publishers no longer have to make that choice -- every site can instantly become a social publishing enterprise with the addition of just a few snippets of code."

Availability and Pricing

Wetpaint Injected is available now to website operators who contact injected@wetpaint.com. Wetpaint Injected is free for any publisher to use on their website for up to 100,000 impressions per month. For web properties that utilize more than 100,000 impressions, Wetpaint charges on a revenue-share or CPM basis. Startup packages for implementation, content development, and moderation are also available. Publishers interested in transforming their website into a social site with Wetpaint Injected should email injected@wetpaint.com.

About Wetpaint

Wetpaint is the leader in social publishing. With the world's largest network of nearly one million social sites and partnerships with major brands such as Dell, The Discovery Channel, Fox, HP, HTC, Showtime, and T-Mobile, Wetpaint offers the industry's most proven social publishing platform for mainstream Internet users and businesses alike. Wetpaint is backed by Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Frazier Technology Ventures, and Trinity Ventures. For company information, visit www.wetpaint.com.

Wetpaint and its respective logos are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of Wetpaint. Other products and company names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective owners.