For several years, Microsoft has been running an employees-only social networking site behind the closed doors of its research division, using the internal trial to explore this young medium for online interaction. After careful evaluation of its potential, Microsoft has decided to release the site to the public as an independent venture called Wallop - Microsoft's first true spin-out enterprise. Company executives asked frog to create a design language for the site that would encourage visual self-expression through media production, while at the same time establishing a consistent identity for the new brand.
We spoke extensively with Wallop's founders to determine the goals and differentiators of the new site. Wallop's mission is to forward the use of media as a means of self-expression, connection, and commerce. Rather than limiting users to self-generated content (the written profiles favored by most social networking sites), Wallop wanted members to link their profiles to external content, expressing themselves directly through the media. The music, films, and animations posted on a given member homepage would act much as the clothes we wear: external representations of our personalities.
Wallop makes it possible for friends with similar tastes to discover hot new visuals, music, and movies on one another's web pages. And an innovative feature takes this one step further by alerting users to friends-of-friends whose preferences match their own - an awareness they can use to make connections or find new stuff they'll like. Users can even see a visualization of their network that determines spatial arrangement by shared interests, mutual friends, and frequency of communication - enabling them to easily find others with shared interests.
Homepages can be highly customized and re-skinned for individuality's sake, with content pulled from other sources or created on the spot. For those who do generate site content - Flash animations, backgrounds, etc. - Wallop provides a platform through which to sell this work. Programmers gain a forum in which to share their creations; others gain access to vast resources of independently-created material. Blogging and messaging features were introduced to the site to provide a textual counterpoint to these new modes of visual expression.
In order to balance a consistent brand identity with this large degree of customization, frog developed a site framework that could sustain a wide range of stylistic expressions. We developed Flash animations to determine key site behaviors: how the menus pulled down, how the interface widgets would move within a page. Throughout the site, the structure of the screen remains constant, regardless of the designs applied to a given page, so that an individual's identity and the Wallop brand identity coexist.
As users' self-expression increases on Wallop, so too does their need for protection. We developed a system that would allow users to filter contacts into concentric networks - close friends, acquaintances, the entire Wallop universe - and manage these various levels of intimacy, determining who can access what parts of their profiles. This clear control over personal information is one of the key features of Wallop.
We worked closely with Wallop programmers throughout site production to ensure that our design language was preserved. Throughout implementation, frog team members remained on call, reviewing software builds and revising the final content. The result is a site that successfully integrates the ideas of self-expression, communication, and media discovery.
Wallop officials were thrilled with the design and launched the site on September 26, 2006. "At Wallop we took social networking and turned it into a social experience where customers could simply point and click to express themselves," said Karl Jacob, CEO and Founder of Wallop. "We challenged frog to deliver an interface that captured the essence of this new experience and, wow, did they deliver."
After only two months in beta, Wallop is already proving the validity of its unique business model, with over 700 registered developers selling "mods," or interactive Flash animations, on the site. Over 17,000 transactions have occurred to date.
