Wallop, previously a semi-forgotton Microsoft Research “sandbox” social network and photo sharing project, was spun off into a new, independent, venture backed business earlier this year (details here). Tonight at 9 pm California time, Wallop is launching a semi-public beta.
Wallop is a Flash based social network that will compete with Myspace, Facebook and others that I mentioned in a post yesterday. It includes free unlimited storage for people to upload photos, videos and music.
Unlike the other social networks, Wallop CEO Karl Jacob says he has no plans to ever put advertising on the site. It just lessens the user experience, he says. Instead, Wallop wants a piece of the $3 trillion per year U.S. market for self expression items (clothes, furniture, beauty supplies, etc.). As sites like Cyworld have shown, people are willing to spend money for online expression items, too (Cyworld brings in a reported $300,000 per day in microtransactions to its users).
So Wallop has created a marketplace for “self expression” items on the site. Flash developers can create items and sell them to users. Music clips, animated widgets, artwork, avatars, clothing for avatars, etc. will all be for sale. Wallop handles payments and DRM, and takes 30% of the sale price. The rest goes to the seller.
Marketplace functionality is still being built, but Wallop says they will have the ability for sellers to create auction sales for one of a kind items, limited edition sales, etc. in the near future.
Invited users will be given five invitations each that can be used to invite others into Wallop. More invitations will be given to users based on how active they are in the service. Look for the service to leave beta and open to the general public in early 2007.
Wallop is based in San Francisco and has 27 employees. They’ve raised a total of $13 million in venture capital over two rounds, from Bay Partners , Consor Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.
Screen shots of Wallop are below.
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What I fail to see is what will bring “users” to the site initially… The call for developers is obvious… “make money” … but what will the users find useful in the site? “Here’s a site you can spend your money at?” What’s the purpose in buying small flash files without any real-world value? To me, this seems more like a novelty than a real long-term marketplace.
Can you comment on your stance on where you see this taking the browser. Flock is a start, but are there any immersive social browsers in the pipeline?
Feels like Flash is getting back control again, in Web 2.0 era. A revenge after “AJAX” being termed. Sites have been heavily employing flash modules. O well, I doubt SVG could parallel with flash in next few years. The compatiblity headover kills it.
Yet still unsure about how they gonna make profit.
thanks for unclip back the feed
OpenBC just changed their name to Xing (blog post here. Maybe Microsoft will Wallop them too? For those who don’t use OpenBC, it’s the European equivalent of LinkedIn, hefty networking and profitable.
The screenshots look great. I belive there will be a ton of Flash enhanced next generation sites, great compatability across all browsers for very fun and interactive interfaces. Web3.0 will be more game like and continue to evolve towards a better version of the real world.
I can see the self expression angle working, like the neopets model. People get involved and wrapped up, then they want to enhance their presence and profile and use some of the latte-money on furry creatures and gold coins.
I tried an earlier version of the wallop beta, and unfortunately the UI was disappointing. It was ultimately too complex and flashy, when what I wanted was simplicity and usability.
I tried but encountered some probz.
So what happened to mywallop.com? My account on mywallop.com still exists but I cant use it to log into wallop.com >_
This app sounds very appealing. The VCs have invested a lot on this project. Self-expression sells.
Wow I’m actually impressed by this. Hopefully this will steal some users from the myspace.
I think the interface will be too slow to gain momentum. As it is, I can’t surf Myspace without Flashblock. I suppose you could run a Flash benchmark on some test traffic to get a feel for how many kids have a PC that could handle this much Flash. I don’t think the results would be pretty.
Back in the early 90’s when ANSI was popular, a new Flash-like vector-based thing started to catch on, but the Internet quickly killed it off and we started using HTML, which in a lot of ways was a big step backwards.
Now I remember. Rest in peace RIPterm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.....g_protocol
Any startup that says it wants “a piece of a $3 trillion market” is either hype-driven or has no marketing plan. The entire global economy was $54 trillion in 2005. Narrowing that to $3 trillion isn’t news, it’s nonsense.
Hi,
Thanks for the comments. I will try to answer some of the questions people have raised.
Arjun you should try the new product. The new interface is nothing like the old one and the new interface was evolved by Frog Design.
PJ, we are written in flash so there is no flash block since we don’t have to load flash on each page and we have a sandbox that prevents mods (flash modules) from getting out of control or slowing things down too much.
Ethan it isn’t about the market size it is about the demand. In the U.S. that number is 30% of people’s paychecks. We believe that is a lot of demand that will move online with the desire to just click and buy vs trying to do it themselves.
The “please invite me” meme was a smart marketing move for Orkut in 2004. Anyway, I like the new feel of Wallop, but Myspace, Facebook and Bebo will rule the consumer social networking scene.
I just sent a mail begging for an invitation…it was humiliating.
Personally, I think numerous things are missing to capture a true social network. MS, FB, etc. are more akin to a communication platform. It’s cool to see the various iterations. I like the no ads model - it’s much more innovative.
send me an invitation rlibson@gmaildotcom
rlibson@gmail.com sorry about that one
Microsoft’s social networking site Wallop has raised $10 million. The investors are Norwest Venture Partners, Bay Partners and Consor Capital. This is just one week following Soapbox’s launch. You can bet the Wallop spinoff is a sign of more Microsoft spinoffs to come. Microsoft is a hotbed of innovation trapped inside a big software company waiting to be unleashed. I would bet there is more to come. I can just see a line of VCs waiting to invest in these Microsoft spinoff companies. Read More
“What’s the purpose in buying small flash files without any real-world value?”
Take a look at MMORPGs - people buy and sell huge amounts of weapons, armour, jewellery, gold, etc - all with no “real-world” value.
Can you please invite me to join Wallop?
Why is it so hard to get an invite? Is this network that good or is it just hype?
If anyone has one, I’d like to check it out.
Thanks
Creasybear2233 [at] yahoo [dot] com
You´re right, C.B. I did wrote requesting an invite days ago, and no answer yet.
Well if there is any caritative soul out there, the e-mail is marvizu25[at]hotmail.com.
Thanks.
anyone kind enough to invite me, omixen@gmail.com
i would really love to check this out.
thanks!
anyone can invite me?
mail: ry_wang@163.com
thanks a lot!
hiya
also looking for an invite
robotcult [at] gmail [dot] com
many thanks!
Hi,
Are there any invitation left around ?
I’m really curious about the GUI and all…
thanks in advance
ralovely [at] ralovely [dot] com
Hey there!
I’m interested in trying it, would anyone be kind enough
to spare some invites? It looks promising to the previous version.
At least I stalled long enough to enter myspace & looking forward
to the flash interface.
With gracious thanks
zephyr.levanter@gmaildotcom
please invite me!! thanks.
guzhok@gmail.com
Can anyone pls mail me an invite
name krishna rao
id: krishnacgrao@rediffmail.com
LET ME BE A PART OF WALLOP
PLZZZ
Please invite me!
doondook[at]mail.ru
Was wondering how long it would take for this to turn into an inviterequestfest!
I have a number of invites I can give away to people. Go over to my site at http://www.dhtmlnirvana.com/blog/ and leave a comment with your email address and ill get as many people in as I can. Alternatively just email, no begging required
Eddie
Please invite me!
ash[at]izuki.jp
Can anyone pls mail me an invite
name kenji takeuchi
id: takeuchi@lincs.co.jp
I’m intrested in designing premade layouts for wallop. I’ve ran into info on wallop before and it’s exciting that it’s finally launching.
Can some kind soul please send me an invite
mark7649@fastmail.fm