“Microsoft Research is looking at how to leverage blogs, RSS feeds, wikis and other social-networking tools.

When Microsoft showed a prototype of software code-named “Wallop” at last month’s Professional Developers Conference, attendees understood exactly what they were seeing. And the fact that Microsoft is sequestering Wallop behind a corporate firewall, allowing only a small number of researchers and their contacts to test the software, isn’t helping to clarify matters.

But Microsoft social computing group researcher Lili Cheng is starting to talk publicly in general terms, at least, about the company’s foray into social-networking software. And Microsoft Research (MSR) is making screen shots available, showing Wallop and some of the other MSR social-computing technologies that are feeding into it.”