Wallop as a Social Network was the premier example of the Pros and Cons of having a Purely Flash Based Social Network. there have been many. all of them have failed. Wallop was the best executed from the bunch. Many are calling it out as a failure but i digress. how can something be a failure if it never truly launched?. Wallop didn’t`t had a problem to project itself into being sustainable or  attractive enough for it to survive. it just happened that since it was backed a Microsoft Research project. it may just have been that. a research project. I had a account in it. it was a great idea but the cons of having everything in Flash outweighed the pros.

For me it just came too early. RIA based Social Networks were just a thought when it launched and even today. they have not materialized yet. but with the arrival of Flex, JavaFX and of course Silverlight. it is not a far fetched idea to say this model could be revisited and succeed in the not far feature. i am sure that if Wallop has started development as a Silverlight 1.0 +ASP.NET. Microsoft would had continued the project.

RIA Social Network are definitely something we should see in the future. the same for the current Social Networks pushing as hard as they can with they way they were build. Facebook made its very big design revamp that after 4 years finally makes it the start of a Social Web Application as it has been taunting for the last 2 years. MySpace is trying out more API`s, more Social Graph data sharing and elements for it to be more connected to the desktop and on Mobiles. so i think that it one of the things we will see in 2009.

Wallop most distinctive trait was that it had a platform for Flash Widget-App developers in a very Facebook like way. just that wallop did it first. even if in a very very limited way. it looks like that part of wallop has thrived on and Wallop is now a Flash Widget-App Startup that offers Social Network Widgets for Facebook and Bebo.

The Two Flash Widgets they offer are based on two styles of greeting cards. interesting end for what was once a completely different kind of project.

Wallop

via TC

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