Online Designer Community Wallop.com Going Strong Two Months after Launch

WebKnowHow
Friday, December 8, 2006; 04:49 AM

Two months after the company's beta launch at DEMOfall, Wallop is proving that its unique business model is already delivering income to developers in its Wallop Modder Network (WMN), with over 17,000 transactions already occurring through the network. Wallop, a company spun out of Microsoft and backed by veteran venture capital firms, is a breakthrough innovation in the social networking space that, 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 are the Adobe(R) Flash developers and designers who sell their ready-made, interactive creations, or what Wallop calls "Mods," on Wallop's marketplace, which has grown to over 700 Modders in two months. With each Mod sold, 70 percent of profits go to the respective developers.

"Participating in Wallop's Modder Network has been surprisingly easy and quick to earn me money," said Paul Koch from PAK Ventures LLC. "I actually just cashed my first check last week! I'm making money doing what I love and it's definitely cool to see my 'Video Gallery' Mod on people's profiles."

Flash developers have not wasted any time putting their creativity to work, building hundreds of saleable Mods in just two months, all to help Wallop members better express their personal identity online. With over 17,000 transactions completed through the Modder Network since launch, it is clear Wallop users are eager to personalize their profile pages with the various Mods available for sale. In addition to the already impressive list of well-known interactive content creators on the WMN at Wallop's launch, the community has continued to thrive and expand, recently adding the new 'Video Gallery' Mod that allows users to freely upload and playback any video, and the 'Radio Net Nirvana' Mod that will play any of 60 streaming Internet radio stations.

Just as members of the Wallop community are excited to have a convenient and unique way to express their online identity, Wallop Modders are thrilled to have the vehicle to share these ready-made forms of self-expression because they can now make money doing what they love when, where and how they want, without any of the business hassle. Wallop handles all aspects of the payment cycle, from processing credit card transactions to screening for fraud to the collection of payment. As anticipated, through the unique business model, the combination of earning income aligned with individual creative expression has proven very compelling for developers.

Developers are also taking advantage of Wallop's social networking APIs and other Web services. For example, developers are now using Wallop's WAPI to individually customize their Mods to provide an enhanced user experiences. Additionally, the ease of marketing for Mods provided through the viral community allows developers to truly focus on their creativity and also get real-time feedback on user interest and demand based on what's hot and growing in popularity.

"We are thrilled to see so many of the most talented designers and developers earn money by selling their innovative and unique visions on Wallop," said Karl Jacob, CEO of Wallop. "It's great to see all of this momentum while we are in beta and in only two months."

For more information on joining the WMN and instructions on how to get started 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/.