Sheesh. What a dumb name. Wallop is a name for bullies. Microsoft Corp is not a leader anymore nowadays as they seem to be coming out with old Web 1.0 technology packaged in ugly Microsoft packages. Ho hum… I think they are getting too old and you know what they do with old rusty giants….They get melted down and stuffed into museums.

Microsoft Corp. has announced the spinout of a new social networking technology, developed by Microsoft Research, to create a new Silicon Valley startup, Wallop Inc. Wallop, whose aim is to deliver the next generation of social computing, is led by entrepreneur and CEO Karl Jacob, with Bay Partners providing Series A financing. Launching later this year, Wallop will introduce a new way for consumers to express their individuality online. Wallop developed a set of algorithms that respond to social interactions to automatically build and maintain a person’s social network.

New Microsoft Corp Social Networking Technology called Wallop source

Wallop’s definition by the Free Dictionary

1. To beat soundly; thrash.
2. To strike with a hard blow.
3. To defeat thoroughly.

Microsoft has just unveiled the beta version of its Windows Live search facility. The media release says in part:

SAN DIEGO — March 7, 2006 — Today at the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference, Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of Windows Live Search beta, designed to help people simply find the information on the Web that matters most to them. The new search service offers a new innovative design with rich viewing and organizational tools, extensive search categories such as image and local search, and services that help people customize results. Other core technologies that complement Windows Live Search, including an updated version of Live.com and a Windows Live Toolbar beta, were also released today. These services are now available in the U.S. and in select international markets in which feature availability will vary.

Christopher Payne, corporate vice president of Windows Live Search at Microsoft, offered details during a talk at the conference. “We’re unveiling a range of innovations that deliver an outstanding level of power and simplicity to search,” Payne said. “Combined with the rich browsing and integrated searching services delivered by Windows Live Toolbar and Live.com, the new search service offers customers the next generation of unified services today.”

MSN Spaces is to allow advertising on its hugely expanding network of blogs. I hesitate to pin a number to the millions of blogs within the space, as it’s out of date almost immediately.

The Official blog, The Space Craft (too cute, or what?) says:

Great news for those of you living in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France or Japan. You can now make money with MSN Spaces. You heard me. Make Money! With Amazon.com if you sign up for an associates ID, whenever anyone buys a book from Amazon.com by linking through from your space, you get a portion of that. So make sure to put up all of your favorite and maybe not so favorite books online.

In the same vain if you live in the US or Canada, you can earn money by allowing Kanoodle ads to run in your space.

Well, it might be a bit vain to write in that vein, but … well, it is only for kids, isn’t it?

Ian McAllister, Program Manager at Microsoft, blogs that he’s heard from a senior player at a “Tier 1″ Netco that, “… his company was willing to entertain ideas for working with Microsoft that would help our Search and/or advertising business, with one of the goals being to prevent Google from dominating those spaces even more than they are now.”

Richard MacManus of ZDNet speculates: “I too find it interesting how Google has become the most feared Internet company, a position Microsoft was in 10 years ago. Hmmm, I wonder who the ‘Tier 1′ Internet company is? Yahoo? IMHO they’re the only other bigco apart from Microsoft and Google that has a 99% chance of having you as a customer. Who else could it be?”

[Sourced from Computerworld, New Zealand]