Microsoft Launches So.cl

Microsoft has recently launched So.cl social networking site on a trial basis. The features of the networking site are as follows:

Share your search
Discover new interest
Start a video party

the design of the home page is very attractive and interactive. i’m sure if this has really great stuff inside. has anyone used it? If yes, then please share your views.

If any one here is not familiar with this (as I am not), Danny Sullivan has a quite informative article on it:

Thanks you Shyflower to sharing this useful article.

I am going to create my account there but first of all I ask opinion from all the members. Can anyone have good experience with so.cl ?

Heya!

I’m new to this forum and hadn’t heard of so.cl yet, so being someone who loves to play with new sites, I signed up right away.

I don’t like that I have to tie it into my FB account or my Windows Live account, but I’ll live, I guess.

I’m not sure what group I’d gather with on so.cl - G+ made sense right off as my entrepreneurial friends jumped on board, and FB has my friends and family. I guess we’ll see what, if anything, so.cl brings us, other than maybe the standard, “linkbait”?

Jill

Heard about this. Doesn’t sound too interesting and I don’t know anybody who has signed up for it. Seems like a bit of a fail. I won’t be marketing on it until there’s a lot more dedicated users.

First I’m hearing of this, what benefits can it provide to my business if I start to use it?
There are already so many other social media sites to keep an eye on and build will this one provide any benefits or better results than other sites I already use and spent time building up?

None. Its a Research project from Microsoft Research. Seems most people did not see “Research” that came after “Microsoft”.

The benefits i see i found with So.cl were that one can share the searches made. Just like a feature in Google where people can +1 ads or searches which get shared on social platform. Similarly Sol.cl has an option to save the searches. This is known as bookmarklet which bookmarks whatever you search.

too many social networks as it is. looks like nothing new. why does MS continue to try and play catch up instead of being innovative

I knew it was a matter of time before Microsoft got into the social niche, how could they resist? They invested in Facebook years ago, and I figured they’d just try and buy it eventually but am glad they went fresh. If this makes it out of R&D maybe they can do some neat integration things with Skype and Xbox with it.

i found its interesting too. the main thing behind all. all big company just wanna over take all social network like first twitter then facebook then G+ now so.cl lets see who win the race

Oh they did launched it already, I have heard this news last year that microsoft plan to create a social networking, well I hope it will not take the faith of myspace.

Again…this in not Microsoft’s social network to compete with Google Plus or Facebook.
http://www.so.cl/about/faq

What is So.cl?

So.cl (pronounced “social”) is an experimental research project, developed by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, that lets you use search to express and share ideas through beautiful story collages.

As it states, it is a research project from FUSE Labs which is part of Microsoft Research. When it comes to Microsoft Research, you should consider it separate from Microsoft. Even then, it is not designed to compete with other social networks but adds to them.

microsoft and yahoo always come late but always the leader in generating money by developing OS everytime.

They become the leader… How so? Microsoft has a great business in it’s software but has done little expansion from there which is coming full circle in a very real way with mobile and even mainstream computing and Yahoo, while looking brighter than ever these days with their new CEO, has hardly had a win in the past 5 years.

I think Ted S you are right. Let me rephrase Microsoft is a leader of Keep changing and developing their new Operating System specifically the windows OS. As far as revenue is concern I am not sure if they are the leader in the market since their OS is always vulnerable and easy to crack many users are using pirated OS of Microsoft. In vast Windows OS I would say is more popular compare to other well known OS in terms of computers excluding the hand held devices. Chinese and Indian mostly using Windows OS than other Operating system and these number of people can be counted like billion already plus most of the asean countries. But again the revenue is arguably better than Apple Macintosh in my opinion

As for yahoo… I cant understand why on earth they are not able to pull out with the best service and be the leader in the internet marketing world. They have the name they have network they have the audience but I don’t think they have the right strategy to effectively outmuscle the mighty google. They need management who can think 4 times better than the existing one.

While true, it’s arguable that they aren’t aiming to top every market they enter, but would rather have their name out there. I remember when Bill Gates was interviewed alongside Steve Jobs and the topic of the Zune came out. Ultimately, the Zune in its latest version was a fantastic bit of kit, but Bill Gates reiterated the idea that Microsoft aims to be present in many markets; to offer choice rather than to compete head-to-head…

One market where they succeeded where everyone, including myself, believed they’d fall was in gaming with the Xbox. Nintendo have pushed themselves out of the mainstream gaming market with the Wii and Wii U, and over the past few years that’s left Microsoft and Sony to battle it out. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the next generation won by Microsoft given Sony’s numerous issues with software and security.

Regardless, Microsoft Research have a very good reputation. This is a strange move for them and I don’t expect any kind of success from so.cl, but I doubt they do either.