Wattpad Wants to Be YouTube for the Written Word
YouTube revolutionized the web when it popularized the idea of user-generated content powering a large social media site. However, YouTube just supports one medium of user-generated content—video. Wattpad is a cool product in technology that wants to do what YouTube did for user-created video, but for creative written works instead. With Wattpad, people upload their stories for popular consumption on the website and mobile app. Just as YouTube videos are free for the public, so are all works posted by Wattpad members. Wattpad contains works from many different genres, ranging from crime drama to science fiction to creative nonfiction. Users can read and react to any story on the site by leaving comments, ratings or marking stories as favorites. Readers can read stories via the cloud or download the text for offline viewing on the Wattpad mobile application for tablets and smartphones. Any users who have issues getting their chosen stories to download to their Wattpad library may need mobile tech support for their devices. Wattpad also keeps track of how many people view a text and download it so writers can see the reach their work has on the service. Read more »
