Wetpaint today let go 9 staffers including co-founders Kevin Flaherty and Alex Berg - as the 4-year-old Seattle operator of wikis refocuses efforts on its own online publishing ventures. It now employs thirty folks. The heavily-funded company isn't announcing too much about the net publishing effort, which includes new business models for the battered media industry.
But a company spokesperson -- who labeled the change a strategic shift -- declared Wetpaint is at present working on a stealth mode project that they intend to in public divulge in the approaching weeks.
Wetpaint has raised a total of $40 million from DAG Ventures, Accel Partners, Frazier Technology Ventures and others has encountered some hiccups before. Just 5 months back, the company reduced its staff by twenty-seven p.c in part because of the slumping online advertising market.
At the time of those cuts, Wetpaint declared that it intended to refocus efforts on the high price entertainment websites that drive a lot of the company's traffic. Those sites have bigger money potential than some of the smaller niche-oriented sites that Wetpaint users have made over time for non-profit groups, bands, marriages and other low traffic audiences.
