Upworthy Aims to Make the News as Shareable as Cat Videos [EXCLUSIVE]

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The goal of the site is to be the ultimate source of viral social good content -- the creators want you to enjoy what's posted, think about it and share it with all your friends in a digital "pay it forward" routine. They're focused on answering "how do you take the best parts of the Internet and mix them with things that are substantive?"

"...We believe the things that matter in the world don't have to be boring and guilt-inducing," reads an opening post on Upworthy. "And the addictive stuff we love doesn't have to be completely substanceless."

So think one part The Onion, one part The Daily Show with a viral cherry on top. The kind of content the site will be sharing is shown in this Venn diagram:

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Visitors to the site are greeted with some of the web's most social content that informs, educates or causes action about some issue. At Monday morning's launch, the two top items are both about Trayvon Martin, the young boy who was shot and killed last month in Florida -- a picture of the Miami Heat wearing hoodies to show their support of Martin, and a video about George Zimmerman, who killed Martin.

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Koechley, Pariser, Hughes and the rest of the team never had an "a-ha!" moment where the idea for Upworthy came about. Instead, it's the result of many conversations about how to take the social web's ability to quickly spread viral content and use that engine to inform people about the important issues of the day.

The site's just getting started, but the Upworthy team has big plans. Some future goals include becoming "the place to find awesome, meaningful, visual things to share," "attract more attention than Ryan Gosling" and "change the national conversation more than Sarah Palin has."

While the site itself has just launched and is a little bare-bones at the moment, the team has been active over on Pinterest. Users can check out boards such as "moving videos" and "women and girls" to get a better idea of the kind of content that will appear on Upworthy.

Do you think Upworthy will fill a need for more sharable social good content? Sound off in the comments below.