Wallop: Microsoft launches pay-for-features social networking site

[mandy]

Wallop, a startup spun out of Microsoft Corp.'s research lab, is launching the test version of an online social networking site with the premise that people will want to pay extra to look good.

The company, which aims to compete with established brands like MySpace and Facebook, plans to sell graphics and other features people can use to decorate their personal profile pages.

Wallop says the plan to charge users for the decorations will supplant the advertising that supports many such free sites.  The add-ons will initially cost somewhere between 99 cents and $4...

full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15011765

A crasher wants into the social networking party, and cool features just might get it past the bouncers. But what about the VIP room?...

Wallop is no carbon copy of MySpace or Facebook. It's a rare instance of a truly different and innovative site in social networking, where many sites share the same basic functionality and even look and feel.

For example, even though MySpace and Facebook are very different, their profile pages have a standard Web page layout, with different sections boxed off and stacked atop one another, set apart by headers. Wallop turns all that on its head. It looks more like a desktop than a Web page, and it's entirely based on Flash,...

full article: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/c...exclusives

Wallop, which launched in limited beta Tuesday, sets itself apart from leading networks by allowing users to customize their profiles by buying Flash-based widgets, or “mods,” that are easy to install. Members can also share photos, music files, and video clips by dragging and dropping content to their profiles, rather than by cutting and pasting code.

“Personalization which could take hours of coding on another site you can accomplish with one or two clicks of your mouse” on Wallop, said Scott Arpajian, vice president of product at Wallop.

But some analysts are questioning Wallop’s business model, arguing that teens might not be willing to shell out real money to customize personal profiles when they can do it for free—albeit with some effort—elsewhere...

full article: http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=18812&hed=Pay+to+Play+on+Wallop§or=Industries&subsector=InternetAndServices

the Wallop web site: http://www.wallop.com/

[BellisimaJ.]

But some analysts are questioning Wallop’s business model, arguing that teens might not be willing to shell out real money to customize personal profiles when they can do it for free—albeit with some effort—elsewhere...

I think the analysts are wrong .

Teens are already shelling out money to personalize their pages on sites such as "MySpace".
My son did. And one of his friends has a nice little business going doing exactly that.