September 18, 2008
Wallop, a social networking site developed by Microsoft’s Social Computing Group has been existed for more than two (2) years, but few watched them seriously until today, simple is that it has been shut down. On the main page of Wallop, the message shown is direct and straight to the point; existing users will not be able to access their accounts after September 18 while the applications developed by Wallop will still be retained on Facebook. Clearly, this shut down is a response to the social networking industry that it is a far more mature industry than most people thought of. As a result, even if it was a product that initially developed by a giant such as Microsoft, it is still very difficult for them to break into the top 10 or top 20 spot.
In fact, Wallop is a spin out of a new social networking technology that developed by Microsoft Research. It tend to provide a mixed media online collaborative environment, specifically an online blog and photo sharing application that designed to help a closely connected group of friends to have a platform for sharing their personal information as well as photographs. Beta users who joined this platform previously can send photos to their Wallop interface through emails or instant messengers. Particularly in 2006 when Wallop launched in beta, they’ve a big plan which comprised of licensing their online community technology, with a special capability in creating the inferred social networks.
Prior to this shut down, Wallop recorded an average 8K unique visitors in August this year, and ranked at 215,457, according to compete.
