Wetpaint

Wetpaint powers websites that tap the power of collaborative thinking. The heart of the Wetpaint advantage is its ability to allow anyone — especially those without technical skill — to create and contribute to websites written for and by those who share a passion or interest. To do this, Wetpaint combines the best aspects of wikis, blogs, forums and social networks so anyone can click and type on the web.

Why the Wetpaint name? It comes from that urge all of us have to touch things when we see a "Wet Paint" sign. It's about being curious, getting involved, and messing around (even if just a little bit) with what's in front of us. Wetpaint sites are never really done — you can always edit and add to them — that's what makes it great. The more coats you add, the richer the story.

Wetpaint was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Seattle's historic Pioneer Square. The company is backed by Trinity Ventures and Frazier Technology Ventures.

Where did the idea for Wetpaint come from? It came from a friend who not that long ago was diagnosed with cancer. After the initial shock wore off, he did what most of us would do: He went online to learn everything he could.

He found lots of facts, but not the stuff he really wanted to know — like how were other people with this type of cancer coping? How did they deal with the treatments? Who were the best doctors? What were the things you don't learn at the clinic?

Sitting helplessly on the sidelines of our friend's dilemma, it dawned on us: Why not come up with a way to make it easy to share information like this about anything: health, jobs, world events, or hobbies? Why not create websites where real people with real experience would become the experts and inspire others to contribute?

That's why we created Wetpaint. Yes, blogs make online publishing easy — but blogs are monologues. And forums are great for question and answers, but they're too hard to search. And wikis allow the reader to become the writer, editor and fact-checker, but they're just too darn hard to use for the average person. Wetpaint is different. With Wetpaint, anyone with a passion can create an entirely new website and invite others to help them build it. And it's easy — adding to a Wetpaint site is as simple as click and type. And when you put thousands of heads together to solve a problem, the results can be astonishing. And we really believe that.

No, Wetpaint won't cure cancer. But it will most certainly make it easier for anyone to share ideas, trade stories, and find people who are passionate about the same things you are. So try it, have fun, and let us know what you think.