A few weeks ago, I was reading up on supposed plans for Yahoo! to purchase the social networking site Facebook. While poking around these internets, I somehow found my way to a new social networking site called Wallop, which is in a private Beta phase right now. I was extended an invitation on Monday and, being the curious cat that I am, started an account with Wallop to see what it was all about.

Wallop is unlike any website I’ve ever used before, which is to say that it’s really cool from a designer’s prospective but it may be a bit overwhelming for the n00b internet user. The whole site is built with Flash, making it very slick and instantaneous. Click on Pictures, for instance, and *bam* they’re there - barely any load time is experienced. The whole site works this way, and is a welcome difference from MySpace’s occassionally ridiculous load times and, in my opinion, crappy navigation.

So yeah, Wallop definitely scores points for being cool, but it’s certainly late to the social networking game. I don’t think everyday users of MySpace would ditch their beloved pet for Wallop, simply due to the time and effort they’ve invested into MySpace’s utter shitiness. I really love the look and feel of Wallop, but will it catch on? And, as is the goal of practically all companies, can Wallop be profitable - or even sustainable?

There are a few features on Wallop that I really like. Pictures are really easy to upload. Music continues playing across ALL pages, not just the main page of the person you’re looking at (a la MySpace). Blog posts from Deanish can be syndicated in Wallop, so it looks like I typed posts right into Wallop itself. It’s easy to see who’s connected to who via networks within Wallop.

Unfortunately, there’s some key functionality in the blog posts that I think need to be addressed. Since I’m syndicating my WordPress blog from my website, I’d like the comments system in Wallop to actually post to my blog, instead of just on Wallop. Also, pictures from my blog posts on Deanish need to come through on Wallop, otherwise the meaning of some posts is lost altogether.

Wallop has a cool feature that others lack, called mods. These mods are mostly graphical additions like falling leaves, a kid waving, and more; while other mods add functionality, like a Flickr photo viewer and a web search box.

I’ll be honest, using mods is kinda confusing at first. I didn’t realize you could drag-n-drop mods until I did it almost by accident, but the fact that mods are totally rearrangeable - you can literally move mods anywhere on your page - is really neat. I consider myself to be an “advanced” internet user so, speaking from experience, I’m sure the average Joe wouldn’t be able to figure that out without a tutorial of some sort. A tutorial on how to create your own mods would be nice as well.

Some mods are free, while others are not. Wallop gives you five Wallop bucks to get started, though I haven’t used mine; I haven’t really seen anything worth paying for yet. At this time, the Mod Shop isn’t functioning properly so I can’t even see them all. Bummer.

I’d really like to be able to customize my front page, ie move the music section to the upper right corner, move pics to the bottom left, etc. Whatever I wanna do. Seems like all of that should be rearrangeable, especially since Mods are rearrangeable already.

The themes are nice, though I’d like to see more, especially “designer” themes (those that have custom background images and such). If users aren’t allowed to design their own themes, we should at least have a ton to choose from.

Aside from the aforementioned, there are some minor bugs that need to be fixed, like a missing scroll bar in the Comment box.

Overall, Wallop looks like it’s shaping up well. Like I said, the user experience - the simple smoothness of it all - is a lovely, welcome change when compared to the typical website. They’re going to need something beyond good looks, however, before they win the minds and hearts of MySpace lovers. I don’t know what that particular thing is but, if Wallop really wants to succeed, they’ll need to figure it out.

UPDATE
I contacted Kate, who is a spokesperson of sorts for Wallop, regarding the issues mentioned above. She welcomed my comments and even had some things to say in response to them:

• She’s passing my suggestion about blog comments on to their product team.
• They’re working on more customization in general.
• She agrees with my opinions on Mods in that they need more clarity, and asked me how I thought they should be delivered.

It’s cool to know that they take user feedback seriously. They wouldn’t be much of a social internet company if they didn’t. Believe me - I’ve had nothing but shit for customer service from MySpace, where it takes them a month or more to respond to customer inquiries. So thanks, Kate, for being responsive.