Redmond spin-off to 'turn social networking on its head'

Microsoft has spun off a new Silicon Valley start-up, bringing social networking technology developed by the firm's research division to market.

The newly created Wallop, which says it will "turn social networking on its head", is led by entrepreneur Karl Jacob. Series A financing was provided by investment firm Bay Partners.

"What is exciting to us is Wallop's vision to turn social computing on its head and significantly change how we look at this sector," said Eric Chin, a venture partner at Bay Partners, and a member of the Wallop board.

"There is no question that, with a talented management team and innovative technology, Wallop is well positioned to take the market by storm."

Launching later this year, Wallop claims that it can solve the problems affecting current social networking technologies by introducing a new way for consumers to express themselves online.

The company argues that today's social networks have difficulty letting people interact in a similar way to how they would in the real world.

To solve this Wallop asked consulting firm Frog Design to conceive a next-generation user interface "enabling people to express themselves like never before".

Wallop explained that it will depart from the 'friend-of-a-friend' model common to all social networks today, which it describes as "the root of many of their problems".

The company has instead developed a unique set of algorithms which respond to social interactions to automatically build and maintain a person's social n etwork.

"We are excited by the interest it has attracted with entrepreneurs and the venture capital community," said Eric Rudder, senior vice president of technical strategy at Microsoft.

"Microsoft has one of the world's pre-eminent R&D labs, and we are committed to getting our innovations into the hands of entrepreneurs."