Add to iTunesBen Elowitz - CEO, Wetpaint
Introduction
This week I talk to Ben Elowitz, the CEO of Wetpaint. Wetpaint is a wiki platform. Interestingly, they started focused on a direct to consumer offering, but have had success getting brand advertisers to create wikis to engage their customers. Interestingly, they “practice what they preach” and have developed much of their own product roadmap from engaging with their consumers.
HP Wiki
On the podcast, Ben talks about the announcement of Wetpaint’s newest customer - HP. This was recorded under embargo on Friday, but was announced this morning. See the screen shots below or just visit the wikis: Home & Home Office Printing Wiki & the Small & Medium Business Printing Wiki.
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Transcript
Interview begins at 0:27
| 0:27 | Sean Ammirati: All right Ben. Thanks for joining me today.Ben Elowitz: Absolutely.Sean Ammirati: So I was wondering if you could start out by just giving us a little bit of an overview on Wetpaint.
Ben Elowitz: Sure. Wetpaint powers consumer-friendly wiki’s. But to be honest we started off with a consumer-friendly wiki platform and found two things happen. One is that, not only the consumers love it but brands started getting into it. So we now have over a half a million consumer-generated wiki’s. And over 50 wiki’s generated for brands. And the second big thing that happened is we started to realize how it connects to other social networking technology like message boards and social networks. So you’ll see that we have a lot of the advantages of those combined with the wiki. Sean Ammirati: Explain that a little bit more in terms of the connections with message boards. Ben Elowitz: Well you know, one of the things that people have been looking for in an online space is the ability connect with other people. And social networks and message boards both have good ways for people to connect with each other. But they have been limited to quick little dialogue. And so what Wetpaint does is to really bring the concept of dialogue further and help the community collaborate. So if you have ten friends online, you can create a site together. Or if you share something in common with thousands of other fans with the same artist or team, you have the chance to collaborate with them to build a site. |
| 01:50 | Sean Ammirati: Okay. Interesting. Do you then plug into existing social networks or are these social networks, message boards, that kind of thing, unique to Wetpaint?Ben Elowitz: Wetpaint works in two ways. And the first is that you come to Wetpaint.com and create your own site. And that’s what happens to the people who have already done it. When they do that, they have a fully functioning site that has its own social networking features as well as the wiki features there. The second way to use Wetpaint is we just recently launched within Facebook and we call it Wiki Whiteboard which lets you collaborate with your friends who are already online in Facebook. |
| 02:29 | Sean Ammirati: How has that been, the Facebook app?Ben Elowitz: It’s been great. It’s great to see what people are doing with it. Whether that’s class notes or class projects or just sites that they share with their friends, create a site, all kinds of things.Sean Ammirati: Say the half million users on your destination websites, how may people are using it inside of Facebook at this point?
Ben Elowitz: Oh you know we just launched it a week ago and I actually don’t have a stat for you yet. But it’s been off to a good start. Sean Ammirati: Good. And then let’s talk a little bit about the 50 or so brands that you mentioned are using it. What would the typical use of case be for a big brand? Ben Elowitz: Brands have been finding and that they are looking for ways to engage their consumers. And we found this firstin the technology world with companies like T-Mobile and Dell where they’re looking to bring all of their customers into a shared space. And you knowSean, you have seen it on MySpace how companies started a year and half,two years ago creating profiles and adding friends. |
| 03:30 | What we’re seeing the brands are looking to engage their consumers a lot more than actually helping consumers collaborate person-to-person and interact with the brand. And so that’s what they have been doing with Wetpaint. There are companies like CBS and HP now, and T-Mobileand Dell, American Express Publishing, Meredith Publishing. A lot of different companies that are looking to create kind of an “Our Space”more than a MySpace where their constituents can come together and share. Sean Ammirati: And how did you guys come to the realization that there is this opportunity for big brands?Ben Elowitz: Well it’s funny that they came to us. So they said, “Hey we’re interested in using wikis to help our consumers build content and community together.” And when they started looking at all the different wikis that were available, I think what attracted themto Wetpaint is that it’s really the one that’s consumer-friendly wikiplatform. So they started calling us and saying, “Hey can we adapt to Wetpaint in a way that we can put our brand on it and make it a real branded experience to augment our existing site?” And when they did that,they keep their existing site and now added a whole community area that helps build traffic and engage their consumers. |
| 04:39 | Sean Ammirati: And how long has that been sort of one of the focuses of Webpaint? The brand part of it?Ben Elowitz: Yes. We first started getting calls for ideas like these even a little bit after launch, we launchedin June of 2006. And it’s been suddenly picking up steam more and more. Now, we are seeing bigger and bigger brands like Hewlett-Packard saying, “We want to get into this too.”At the beginning companies were often afraid to risk putting their brands out there for consumers to reallyinteract with. And I think over the last two years there’s been a huge change where they’re now absolutely realizing that the right way to get consumers engaged with their brands is to let them interact and edit contents and add things and send messages to each other. And really bea part of that. Sean Ammirati: Interesting. So you mentioned that these brands reached out to you and I think the way you described sort of the advantage to Wetpaint over some of the other wiki platforms was this is more consumer-friendly. Who would you say are the major people that you’recompeting with I guess both on the consumer side and then direct to big brands and to their customers’ offerings? |
| 05:49 | Ben Elowitz: It’s really been hard to say. Consumer brands don’t yet know what a wiki is. And when it comes to social networking what they have been looking at is more on how do they join on MySpace and Facebook. And so we are just seeing this wave that’s starting to grow now or they’re saying, “Let’s collaborate.” I don’t think there’s really a lot out there.You know Wikipedia is a wonderful wiki that powers on an encyclopedia but it’s not the kind of thing that you can make your own site from for a group of people. It’s just too hard to use and requires that you figure out hosting and so on. The first is Wetpaint is a free service. So I’d say it’s been very, very rare that we have actually been able to find another option here to peoplewho want to create this kind of community. |
| 06:32 | Sean Ammirati: Didn’t Google purchase one of the players in this space?Ben Elowitz: Google purchased a JotSpot which was morefocused on the department and work group collaboration.Ben Elowitz: I actually haven’t released the new version of that yet.
Sean Ammirati: Okay then there’s obviously Wikipedia also has Wikia, correct? Ben Elowitz: Yes, that’s true which is another great alternative to people who are part of that free knowledge movement. And very closely affiliated with Wikipedia. It’s got a great thing. A lot of great things going for it you. Sean Ammirati: But you’re not seeing them in the marketplace when you’re competing for just at these brands? Or your consumers’ offerings are talking to that as an alternative? Ben Elowitz: I think what brands are realizing is that they need to let consumers to really participate and be engaged with thecontent. And to do that, they appreciate the extra social networking features like being able to see this on my site. And they appreciate that users’ use. And that’s an area that they think coming to Wetpaint for and it seems pretty exclusive. |
| 07:32 | Sean Ammirati: Cool! So let’s shift a little bit here. We’re actually recording this on Friday but when this goes live on Monday, there’ll be an announcement around HP. So you want to talk a little bit about how HP’s going to leverage Wetpaint for their customers?Ben Elowitz: Yes, absolutely. HP is on the process of rolling out a major multi-hundred million dollar campaign around printing. And they’re trying to take printing from being something we take for granted functionally to something that they actually have to help people get excited about, particularly through a new digital generation that is used to seeing things online and not printing.And so, what they have been looking for is kind of gathering the best of ideas from real people out in their community. And then how do you help share those among other real people. And so, that’s what they came to Wetpaint for, is to build a community around projects and design and people taking and printing and making it more meaningful as part of this multi-hundred million dollar campaign. |
| 08:32 | Sean Ammirati: Is the whole campaign launching on Monday? Is that the reason for the launch Monday announcement is this just one of the first things? Just trying to figure out how this fits into the whole hundred million dollar campaign you mentioned.Ben Elowitz: Yes. And I know they’ve been doing a lot of different things in different stages. So I can’t speak to kind of all the different things that they’ve been doing and the timing of them. This component is what’s going to be announced on Monday. It’s a major step for them and for us in being able to help people connect.Sean Ammirati: Sure. I think you said you’ve been out since 2006, correct? Ben Elowitz: Correct. Sean Ammirati: So over the last the year now I guess, what have been the big surprises for you since you launched Wetpaint? Ben Elowitz: When we first launched it I don’t thinkwe have any idea how to expect the huge range of what people are wanting to collaborate on. So we see sites for people, groups of people who are planning a trip together all the way to people using Wetpaint even though it’s not the same that we have for private sites for a corporate intranet. And then with people who are developing huge fan page for a team or celebrity or an interest that they have in common. |
| 09:49 | So that range has been huge. And then secondly I would say that the way that brands have really hoped on board and taken advantage of it. We said we want not only social networking present but we also want to help our users collaborate and even almost provide like a 24×7 focus group after the brand. It’s something that we just never needed to expect. I think we haven’t expected the brands to change that quickly. And it seems like right now they’re changing very, very quickly.Sean Ammirati: And you guys are based out of Seattle, correct?Ben Elowitz: That’s right.
Sean Ammirati: What’s the experience been like running Wetpaint out of Seattle |
| 10:32 | Ben Elowitz: It’s been really good. Seattle’s kind of great culture and vibe in the tech world. So find a lot of really fantastic talents. It’s definitely a lot smaller than the Bay Area where I used to be from. And I’m sure that a lot of the companies that you talked to are headquartered there.But one of the advantages of that is that it doesn’t get as quite crazy with Google and Yahoo hiring thousands of people. And so it makes you appreciate really getting to know people and develop long-term relationships with them. And work with folks you’ve already gotten to know from other companies.Sean Ammirati: Yes. I’m actually in Pittsburgh, so I understand that appeal completely. Although you do have another big company out there I think that hires lots of people. I can’t remember the name of it right now. But there’s some tech company up there I think.
Ben Elowitz: Exactly. There’s two of them now. One a little bit older and the other started in late 90’s. Sean Ammirati: That’s right. What is your background, Ben? Ben Elowitz: Well before Wetpaint, I co-founded company called Blue Nile, that you may know. Blue Nile sells diamonds and jewelry online. And it’s actually a quite successful company. In fact, one of the things that we learned of study that Blue Nile that we do today is really focused on consumer experience. So Blue Nile and then after that I had start-up in the Bay Area called Fatbrain.com that was acquired by Barnes and Noble. |
| 11:49 | Sean Ammirati: Cool! Let’s talk a little about that focusing on the consumer experience. What are some of the ways that you’ve been able to do focused on the consumer experience?Ben Elowitz: One of the most important things we do is very similar to what we are seeing these brands do, which is we use the sites that we power as a real time focus group. So we see what people are doing at these sites. I’ll give you a quick example of it. We recently launched a feature called “site templates”.When anyone creates a brand new site, it offers them a pre-made design to choose from which contents are already filled in into that, right. so if it’s a fan site, you start with the fan site template. Say it’s going to be for planning a trip so you can start with the template about your friends. And so one of the things we did to help with that engagement and customer experience is really watch to see what people were doing and help make all those things easier. |
| 12:43 | Sean Ammirati: Interesting. It’s very interesting because that feels very quantitative to me I guess in terms of analyzing that data. Do you do a lot of users studies and things like that on top of it? Or do you find that data analysis and observing people’s behavior kind of electronically and through server logs and things like that is sufficient?Ben Elowitz: Well it turns out that it’s scientific there and we do customer experience. We’re just much more being focused from beginning to end. So I’ll give you some examples. We do market research where we survey our consumers and see what they think, and what they like, which is more quantitative. But when we design, we actually design with individual personas in mind. We have pictures on the wall of who our target users are and what they want that we have done by talking to real people. And finding out what’s important to them. |
| 13:44 | And when our designers start working on the project they’ll think about, “Hmm, what does Sam want?” for example. And how can I help Sam meet his goals. And that’s the poster we keep on the wall. Then once we’ve developed features we do a lot of work, to put them in front of people. We do usability testing, almost probably more that 50% of our ideas we’ll get them in front of people and see what they think. And then take that feedback and incorporate back into the product. So very much from beginning to end including looking at the metric afterward of how to perform.Sean Ammirati: Interesting. So let’s talk a little bit about just the future for Wetpaint. As you sort sit back and look at where you guys are heading, how much of your energy do you think you’ll be focusing on the consumer directly, the chain of relationships through these big brands? And then let’s talk about other kinds of things you have coming down the road map. |
| 14:31 | Ben Elowitz: I think the consumers are always the place that we’re focused. That’s where we start and finish because the brands want the same thing. That people like Sam want which is really a strong collaborative experience with other people. So I would say that’s the joy of our work. It goes into really helping to create a fantastic consumer experience.You know one of the things we do is we call it ‘customer-led innovation’ which is you know is getting to be quite popular. But we just keep tabs on the things that they’re writing us and asking for. And so that’s definitely the focus of what we do. And then because of our success with that it seems to be that’s the reason that the brands are interested and call. We definitely do a lot of support for brands in helping to educate them and work with them to get sites up and running. That’s because of our success and consumer platform that the brands are so interested.Sean Ammirati: Any ideas sort of what those customers are asking you for now? Things that you are excited about in upcoming releases, things like that that you can talk about? |
| 15:31 | Ben Elowitz: Sure. You know in fact it’s all quite public in the sense that we run a website powered by Wetpaint called WetpaintCentral.com. And if you go on that site you can actually see what customers are asking for. And we follow that very closely and talk back with our consumers.And so, we were working on things like enabling better dialogues between people. Enabling people to get to know each other better. And some more social networking features because people actually want to have a stake in their site. And that includes both connecting with each other in different ways. And then also just helping sites to grow more because people want to find new people to share their common interest.Sean Ammirati: Cool. There’s just one more thing I want to make sure we touched on here. And I’ve sort of drilled on this just a couple of different ways, which is kind of where customer services head in. And I think obviously to some extent you’re using Wetpaint as a model for that which is why I was very curious around customer experience, things like that.
But if you would take yourself out of running a software company, what do you think the average customer experience is going to be maybe two, three years down the road? And how wiki-powered sites like Wetpaint fit into that or wiki-powered customer service sites fit into that. |
| 16:52 | Ben Elowitz: Well I think what we’re seeing is that every brand is looking to connect with its consumers. And particularly, as we move into 2008 and marketers are setting up their marketing initiative and budget, they’re looking at how to get closer to the consumers. So we’d see over the next year, the same way marketers two years ago had to look at creating a page on MySpace, we see a sea change towards wanting to have a wiki-like consumer platform.Sean Ammirati: Okay. So obviously you’re seeing some first movers like CBS Interactive and HP. Do you have any idea, does this is extend out? Do you think that because you’re packaged good, maybe some of the industries which might not be at typically as quick to move into this? I mean I don’t know what the verticals are. But what are the verticals that you think will continue to adapt this beyond this sort of quick, early adopters? |
| 17:43 | Ben Elowitz: Yes. Well I think we’re actually already moving from the early adopters towards an area where every brand has a wiki. We’re seeing first in media companies. So we worked with Discovery, BET, CBS, CBC, American Express Publishing, Meredith. Five other names I’m forgetting to mention even. In terms of media companies where they’re saying, “Hey we want the consumers directly engaged”And then as you plan out, the technology companies are the ones who are a little more forward. That we are very quickly thinking consumer companies get into it as well. A consumer packaged goods products starting their own Wetpaint sites. So I think we’re quick moving to a world where every brand gets a wiki.Sean Ammirati: And then finally I guess, what’s the business model around these. Are they ad supported in both cases? Or other brands paying you some type of license fee? How does that work? |
| 18:36 | Ben Elowitz: We are an ad-supported company. So that advertising revenues we make on consumer sites is what lets those sites be free to consumers. So when we work with the company, most of the time they like to be running somebody off of it in addition to getting the engagement and all the support that they get through their users. So often times those run advertising. In certain cases they don’t, then we work with the partner to figure out how to make the whole piece fit then in that case.Sean Ammirati: I could imagine the ads serving get a little complicated for these big brands though.Ben Elowitz: It does. I think as we see the industry change. They are building those internal competencies. And then since we’re advertising to bring companies, of course we have our own in that. So we tend to be able to work it all out without too much hassle because they’ve got good partners or a good capability themselves. And then we have our own capabilities. |
| 19:31 | Sean Ammirati: Interesting. Well hopefully some people listening will contact you about doing this with their brands. So I really appreciate you spending a couple of minutes with me today,Ben. Is there anything else that you want to make sure we mention or cover today?Ben Elowitz: I think that’s it. I think it’s just that we look at consumers actually taking an active role at these brands. We are seeing the landscape and the bigger picture change. Cause now consumers have a voice on the use of branded sites to interact directly. And that’s important. It doesn’t only help the brands but it really helps consumers get in touch with each other and with their shared interest.Sean Ammirati: Well I think that’s a great note to end on, Ben. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today.
Ben Elowitz: Thanks very much, Sean. |
