Forget MySpace, Friendster or Facebook, at least for the moment. Microsoft is packing its online community punch with Wallop, a social networking site that launched yesterday at the DEMOfall 2006 conference in San Diego.
In development for four years as part of Microsoft Research Labs, SFO-based Wallop has created an “invitation-only social experience”where people can only sign up for the service if an existing member invites them.
Wallop is taking its cue from virtual worlds communities like Second Life and Weblo, or massive multiplayer online games (MMOG) World of Warcraft or Knight Online. The company plans to sell graphics and other features created by Web developers people can use to decorate their personal profile pages.
Wallop is also based on Flash so the pages and interface look great. Developers who can code in Flash or ActionScript can create widgets, or “Mods,” and sell them to other users in the site to spruce up the social network pages. The sellers, or Modders, get 70 percent of the revenue, the remaining goes to Wallop. A new twist on the economy of folksonomy.
RSS
