Wallop, a Microsoft spin-off, launched its social networking service today at DEMOfall, reports Techcrunch, BetaNews, C/Net and Paid Content.
Unlike other social networking services like Facebook and MySpace, Wallop is invite-only and won’t include advertising. Instead, Wallop makes money through the purchase of self-expression items that can be placed on the user’s site. The Flash-based system allows people to buy games, animated backgrounds, slide shows and videos and then add them to their customized Web pages. Those materials — known as “mods” — will be sold for 99 cents to $4.
Initial $10 million funding for the project came from Norwest Venture Partners. An additional $3 million in funding was previously raised from Bay Partners and Consor Capital.
It integrates photo sharing, music sharing, and blogging into one platform. One-click customization may replace the HTML coding process that is necessary with sites like MySpace. In addition, users control who can see what on their profile, keeping personal information hidden from those they may not know as well.
Initially, the site will be open to a limited number of beta testers, who would each be given five invites. Future invites would be based on who uses the site most, the company said. The site is expected to go public in early 2007.
Users will be able to share music, pictures, and commentary across the site. Wallop says all the digital rights management functionality would be controlled by the site. This would include the mods to site pages, where the company asks for a 30 percent cut.
Business 2.0 offers a peek where wireless technology is headed.
Helio, a joint venture between SK Telecom and EarthLink, is launching a full fledged marketing effort for its service in the US. Helio is a virtual mobile operator. It works with MySpace. MySpace has some 80 million registered users.
MySpace mobilizes Helio phones (left). MySpace On Helio will essentially give the millions of MySpace users an opportunity to disconnect from their PCs and access their email, bulletins, profiles, blogs, and photos from their mobile phones.
Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook, the college and high school community site, are going mobile, too.
South Korea has become the world’s best laboratory for broadband services. Cyworld, a social network owned by a subsidiary of SK Telecom, is a mixture of MySpace, Flickr, Blogger, AIM and Second Life.
Wired reports that a quarter of the South Korea’s 48.2 million people have signed up to CyWorld, including 90 percent of the 24- to 29-year-old age group.
Sites like Cyworld have shown that people are willing to spend money for online expression. Cyworld brings in some $300,000 per day in microtransactions. That’s more than $7 per user per year, says Business Week. By comparison, ad-heavy MySpace makes an estimated $2.17 per user per year.
Other social networking competitors include Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, Flickr, Piczo, Tagged, TagWorld and Tribe.
And don’t forget those video host sites like YouTube. Microsoft has launched a beta video upload service. Microsoft’s new Soapbox is taking on YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video and Revver.
Soapbox will eventually be integrated with Windows Live Messenger to allow people to embed links to videos in instant messages and with Windows Live Spaces so people can include videos on their blogs. YouTube, the free online video leader, has signed a deal with Warner Music to distribute the music company’s videos on its web site.
Related DailyWireless articles include; CyWorld, MySpace is Mobilizing with Helio phones and City Clouds: Becoming The World Cup.
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