Wallop launches its beta product, the first social experience to connect
designers and consumers through a marketplace for self-expression
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- DEMOfall -- Wallop, a company spun
out of Microsoft and backed by veteran venture capital firms, today
launched its beta product, a breakthrough innovation in the social
networking space with a unique business model. Wallop, an invitation-only
network, for the first time combines a social networking site with a
marketplace, enabling an entirely new way to self-express and enhance a
person's increasingly important online image. Central to Wallop's business
model will be Adobe(R) Flash developers and designers who will sell their
personal creations on Wallop's marketplace. Now Flash experts, who have
been responsible for many of the most innovative Web concepts, can make
money doing what they love without any of the business hassle.
Wallop's marketplace model empowers users to further enhance their
online image by purchasing ready-made, interactive forms of
self-expression, or what Wallop calls "Mods" from Flash developers and
designers who are members of the Wallop Modder Network (WMN). Thanks to
this rapidly growing group of Modders, Wallop's marketplace is populated
with original Flash content, such as interactive characters, stylistic
backgrounds, graphical features and games, ready for purchase by the broad
market of Wallop consumers.
"We have been working with Wallop's Modder Network for several months
now and have been very impressed with the opportunity it presents to Flash
designers everywhere," said Alex Bard, president & CEO of Goowy Media.
"They made it very easy for us to extend our minis, from yourminis.com,
into the Wallop community. This creates value for the Wallop members while
providing a great opportunity for individual Flash developers and companies
to extend their applications and to create revenue opportunities."
In addition to Goowy Media (http://www.goowy.com), the WMN is already
thriving with well-known interactive content creators starting to sell Mods
on Wallop. This community includes Dave Werner (http://www.okaydave.com),
James Hay (http://www.vectorjunkie.co.uk), Ghostbot
(http://www.ghostbot.com), Darren Richardson (http://actionscripts.co.uk)
and many others.
More than four years of research at Microsoft combined with Wallop
founders Karl Jacob and Sean Uberoi Kelly's vision for leapfrogging
existing social networks, led Wallop to focus on the larger trend of
self-expression online with the simplicity people experience in the real
world. Wallop taps into the $3 trillion-a-year offline industry of
self-expression as it moves online by delivering a robust platform for the
more than two million Flash professionals to easily generate revenue doing
what they love, in a unique marketplace. Monetizing self-expression is
already a successful business online, and with Wallop's business model, the
sellers, or Modders, get 70 percent of the revenue to easily earn income on
their own schedules. Wallop provides a viral community for easy marketing
of Mods, processing the credit card transactions, screening for fraud and
collecting payment so sellers can focus on being creative and getting paid.
"It is Wallop's goal to provide a powerful, multimedia platform to
showcase developer and designer talents without the hassles of other forms
of Web monetization, including maintaining and managing individual
businesses," said Sean Kelly, CTO and founder of Wallop. "We look forward
to seeing our Modders be rewarded as their designs spread on the network
and they start making money. We want to hear from the first one to quit
their day job."
In addition, Wallop's revolutionary new user interface evolved by the
legendary Frog Design brings point-and-click simplicity to social
networking and makes it dramatically easier to express a user's
individuality.
"We've had a great time working on the Wallop interface. We saw the
opportunity to do something really interesting with social networking and
turning Wallop into a social experience like no other," said Mark Rolston,
senior vice president of creative at Frog Design. "We believe our solution
redefines customer expectations, allowing them point-and-click simplicity
to express themselves. So far, we are thrilled with how well the new design
has been received."
Join the Wallop Modder Network (WMN)
It's easy to start creating Mods using the WMN. It is the central
resource for information about creating, uploading and selling Mods in the
Wallop marketplace. We provide a complete suite of tools to make developing
content for Wallop straightforward and painless. On the WMN you will find
examples of how to convert existing and new Flash content into Mods, an
extensive Wallop API for ActionScript developers, an online forum where
Modders exchange ideas and collaborate on their next cool Mod, and many
more resources to make Modding for Wallop fun and exciting.
For more information on joining the WMN and instructions on how to get
started please visit http://designer.wallop.com.
About Wallop
Wallop, a spinout company from Microsoft, redefines the popular social
networking space by introducing a new social experience that integrates
self- expression with exclusivity, a revolutionary new business model and
solutions to the problems nagging today's social networks. Wallop started
as a Microsoft research project more than four years ago. Veteran
entrepreneur, Karl Jacob, had been looking for a technology that would
fulfill the vision he had around leapfrogging the current state of social
computing with a marketplace business model. Karl found the research
project at Microsoft and recruited Sean Kelly, the inventor of Wallop, as a
founder. They immediately had a huge advantage in bringing Wallop to market
a little over a year later.
Wallop is founded by Karl and Sean. It is a privately-held company
venture backed by Norwest Venture Partners, Bay Partners, Consor Capital
and an equity stake from Microsoft.
Wallop is by invitation only. To learn more about Wallop, visit
http://www.wallop.com.
Wallop and the Wallop logo are registered trademarks of Wallop
Technologies Incorporated. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
Media Contact:
Moka Pantages
512-241-2257
Moka.Pantages@porternovelli.com
SOURCE Wallop
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Related links:
http://www.wallop.com
CONTACT:
Media - Moka Pantages of Wallop,
+1-512-241-2257, Moka.Pantages@porternovelli.com
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