Our second release of the New Year includes a number of enhancements so you can make your Wetpaint sites more fun and engaging than ever.

This release includes a new video gallery, long awaited enhancements to our Discussion Forums, a new page layout options, two new content modules, two new Droplets, and the ability to remove ads from your site for a fee.

We’re really excited about this release and hope you are too.

Video Gallery

After seeing countless YouTube videos added to pages we decided to make Videos a major destination.

From the new Video Gallery, you can easily search and add YouTube videos to your heart’s content. Moderators and up can even ‘feature’ certain videos so they are prominently displayed at the top of the video gallery.

This puts you in the driver’s seat to make sure the right content is front and center. Just like photos, video descriptions and tags can be added or easily edited by others.



On each video detail page you’ll find you can easily browse other featured videos or related videos. You define which videos are related by tagging your videos. Have lots of videos on your favorite TV actor? Not to worry, your Wetpaint site will automatically create links to them so you and other fans need not hunt around. Each video also includes threads so you can keep the conversation rolling. Checkout the screencast to learn more.




Discussion Forums

Our Discussion Forums get lots of use and not surprisingly we get lots of feedback on how to make them better. We listened. In this release you can now ‘feature’ a thread so it gets displayed prominently in the Forum and any other page it’s associated with. Featured threads are sort of like ‘sticky’ threads in other Discussion Forums. Feature a thread so everyone knows where the hot conversation is.

Other forum enhancements include lockable threads for moderators and up. Want to shut down a conversation, but don’t want to have to delete it? Locking threads is your ticket. Users can also now edit their own posts. Make a silly typo? No worries. Just click ‘edit post’ and tidy things up. We also cleaned up the tools a bit at the top of the page to make them more similar to the Wetpaint page tools.



Layout controls

Frustrated with creating page layouts using tables? There has to be a better way!

There is.

Now, using the new layout zones feature, you can easily add a two column layout to your Wetpaint page. You can do this at any time – even to existing pages. Don’t like the new layout? Simply convert it back to a single, big, column.

Select the ‘layout zones’ button from the toolbar and choose the two zones option.










After you save you can then edit each ‘zone’ independently. Check out the screencast to learn more.



New Content Modules

There are two new content modules to go with the ones added in our last release. Now you can add content modules to feature your site’s top contributors or the hot discussions in the Forum. Like other content modules these will match your site’s look and feel automatically, but can be customized to have different colors, layouts, and titles.

Content modules are a great way to keep your site active and fresh. Install them right on your home page to keep everyone engaged!



New Droplets

Last, but not least we’re proud to have two new Wetpaint Droplets in the mix. The first new Droplet is really a mash-up of our others. Now with the ‘Site-at-a-glance’ Droplet you can promote your favorite Wetpaint site by displaying the latest photos, discussions, and site activity in one spot.

The second Droplet is the “All Eyes On Me’ Droplet. Want to shout about your contributions from the rooftop? Take the ‘All Eyes On Me’ Droplet and plaster it all over your MySpace and Facebook pages.

Premium Upgrades

We’ve been testing this service for a while and it’s been a hit with private groups, small businesses, and non-profits who want more control over their Wetpaint site. For $9.95 a month, you can upgrade your Wetpaint site to remove advertising from your Wetpaint site. More premium features will be coming soon. Learn more.