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April 25, 2006

Microsoft Spins off Wallop

Michael Arrington

27 comments »

Wallop, previously a semi-forgotton Microsoft Research “sandbox” social network and photo sharing project, was spun off into a new, independent, venture backed business. Wallop was previously at mywallop.com - the new company is at wallop.com.

The new entity is led by CEO Karl Jacob, a Sun Microsystems and Microsoft veteran. Karl is a seasoned entrepreneur as well - this is his fifth startup (he was a founder or co-founder of On Ramp, Dimension X, Keen (now Ingenio) and Cloudmark). The new entity has raised a Series A round from Bay Partners. Microsoft will retain a “minority stake” with a non-voting board seat.

Not much is being disclosed about Wallop yet, except that it is significantly different than the existing Wallop project. I’ve seen a bit of what they plan to offer, and I’ll say that this is not another “me too” social network offering. And there are a number of unique business model twists that they aren’t announcing yet. The launch is scheduled for this summer. One interesting thing to note: the current Wallop site is all-Flash. hmmm.

Existing MyWallop.com beta users will not immediately be affected by the change.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006 at 8:21 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Saul Weiner

    April 25th, 2006 at 8:50 pm

    This is good news for Microsoft shareholders. Why? Shows that there are no scred cows. They’re creating at least some level of focus.

  2. Juvenn Woo

    April 25th, 2006 at 8:53 pm

    I have nearly forgotten mywallop, since I joined last year. It had suprised a lot at first, but then I found it could help a little. Now I think it will be a big suprise again when launching later this year. Just like the Start.com and the later Live.com.

  3. Mike

    April 25th, 2006 at 9:06 pm

    I’m still trying to make sense out of live.com - anyone know what “wallop” stands for?

  4. Mark Brooks

    April 26th, 2006 at 3:56 am

    http://www.mooble.com is a social network that is also built on flash.

    Mark Brooks
    editor, http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com

  5. David Utter

    April 26th, 2006 at 4:08 am

    Maybe “wallop” stands for “all the other names were taken.” :)

  6. Jim

    April 26th, 2006 at 5:44 am

    @David

    Yep - I’m already dreading the “Web 3.0″ domain names…45643$#%ge.ws

  7. Mike

    April 26th, 2006 at 6:19 am

    Got a love these Adobe/Go Beyond Ajax/Flex ads I’m seeing on this site. Perhaps they should let people know the Flex platform costs $$$$$$$ while Ajax is free :)

  8. Justin Siegel

    April 26th, 2006 at 7:29 am

    Does anyone know if they have plans to do something on mobile with it like MocoSpace.com ?

  9. Orli Yakuel

    April 26th, 2006 at 7:43 am

    Interesting..

    myWallop have the ability to share stories, photos, songs, RSS Fedds and much more.
    Sure, there are lots of services out there that gives you pretty much the same but the unique of myWallop is
    without a doubt the really good looking interface and the usability of the site.
    Can’t say that myWallop is perfect but it have some good qualities and
    uploading songs to mywallop really is fast,easy and the streaming is crazy! best that i ever tested.

    For Flash addict like me i have to say that it’s one of the best application that i use in that technology,it’s smooth and beautiful.
    (who said that Flash is out?)

    I do hope that the “new” Wallop will know how to reserve what is already good and to fix and improve the stuff that don’t.
    It will be refreshing to see Wallop becoming a business model, certainly something I’ll wait to try.

    *for me one of the huge BUG now is that it’s not support Hebrow.

  10. Dylan Greene

    April 26th, 2006 at 11:11 am

    Check out the dancing pink box on their home page.

    Seems that they took the guy who created the office paperclip with them.

  11. koz

    April 26th, 2006 at 11:14 am

    maybe they will keep some or most of the flash stuff and retool it all for the forthcoming Origamis / UMPCs.?? Hmmm.. indeed

  12. bizwiki

    April 26th, 2006 at 1:33 pm

    most we concern gonna to be what else they will offer for the publice, which is different from the others ?

  13. Blaze

    April 26th, 2006 at 7:40 pm

    Wallop means getting a flogging or getting your ass kicked. eg: “He took a big walloping from the bully”.

    Hope these guys don’t get “wallopped” by any other big social networks ;). (There aren’t that many big ones out there, are there? ;))

  14. 0406rv

    June 4th, 2006 at 5:28 pm

    很不错哦,,支持呀,,,

  15. Karthik

    September 26th, 2006 at 7:00 am

    seems interesting. i sent the wallop guys a mail for an invite.. let me see how it feels like..

  16. mykdh

    October 7th, 2006 at 8:34 pm

    Think you！！

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