Microsoft Wallops Social Networking

Computer giant announces they are spinning off Wallop, a Silicon Valley start up focused on taking the crowded social networking market by storm.

Microsoft today entered the crowded social networking market as it announced it was teaming with Silicon Valley entrepreneur Karl Jacob to launch a start-up. Called Wallop, this new company is being headed by Jacob as its CEO and is receiving Series A funding from Bay Partners.

Wallop, said Microsoft, is the spinout of a new social networking technology developed by Microsoft Research and part of the Microsoft IP Ventures program. Though exact specifics of the new service, which will debut later this year, were not made available, a press release issued about Wallop stated that it