Launched earlier this year, Wetpaint allows people to quickly create sites using Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis, blogs and photo-sharing. Starting with Executive Travel next month, American Express will roll out sites on Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, and Travel & Leisure Golf by mid-2007.

American Express joins several other marketers that have started or are developing corporate pages on Wetpaint including ABC, AOL, Palm, and T-Mobile. ABC has a fan site for its hit show "Lost" on Wetpaint, which operates more than 100,000 user sites overall.

American Express' magazine sites on Wetpaint will allow readers to add their own content, from recipes to travel tips and stories, alongside professionally written articles and reviews from the magazines. Visitors will be able to comment on magazine articles, but they will only be able to edit other users' content using the wiki platform. Sites will be moderated by volunteer experts in relevant fields.

For American Express, the Wetpaint sites are a way to experiment with social communities online without having to retool their existing magazine sites. "We wanted to put these sites off in a different place so it feels like a community of enthusiasts," said Mark Stanich, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of American Express Publishing.

He said the sites would be seeded with as much magazine content as needed to provide users with a foundation for their own travel or food-related articles and recommendations. "People love to tell travel stories and trade recipes," said Stanich. "This is just another way to invite people in as part of our community."

Wetpaint sites are typically supported by contextual ads through AdSense. But American Express is seeking to persuade existing magazine advertisers to extend their buys to the Wetpaint offshoots. Tourism Australia, for one, will run ads on the Executive Travel page starting next month on Wetpaint.

Stanich said he also anticipates that the less costly placement on the new sites will attract a new cadre of smaller advertisers, such as bed and breakfast operators, who wouldn't normally take out ads in the print magazines or their main Web sites.

Whether the older, more affluent demographic American Express Publishing caters to will embrace the social networking zeitgeist remains to be seen. But Stanich expects that readers' enthusiasm for the magazine topics will translate into user interaction. Links between the existing magazine sites and their Wetpaint counterparts will help to drive traffic.

One key to attracting consumers has been the company's user-friendly technology that requires knowing only how to click and type. "You don't need to be an editor or have any technology skills, " said CEO Ben Elowitz.

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