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Microsoft has launched a thing with a silly name, which it’s calling So.Cl. Apparently we are supposed to pronounce this as “Social” due to it being the OS giant’s next big attempt at launching a full social network.
The site, which uses either a Windows Live or Facebook ID to gain access, is described by Microsoft as being an “experiment in social search.” Once in, users are greeted by a slick site that seems to take quite a few design cues from Google+, along with the ability to add your interests, set up “video parties” where everyone chats about the latest hilarious YouTube clip and all the usual tagging, sharing and commenting tools you’d expect.
Obviously the site incorporates Bing as its search engine. Use the search box to hunt for something and your search term will be published in your status feed for others to see, which sounds like an interesting, if potentially life-ruining, feature to offer. Hopefully there’s some sort of time limit option, like “Do not share any searches I make between 01:00am and 05:00am, because I am not my usual self at those times.”
The idea is that educational types might be able to use it for collaborative research, but we suspect Microsoft also hopes the vain modern people of the world will simply like bragging about what they’re looking for online. Which sounds like a very plausible concept.
The site is currently phasing its launch, mind, so some of you won’t be able to try it just yet, with Microsoft placing some new registrants into an imaginary waiting list. [So.Cl via Lifehacker]
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Oh Microsoft, that it has come to this.
http://xkcd.com/1022/
Google+ worked in some fashion because Google is an online presence that a -lot- of people were already entrenched within. They used the search engine daily (and definitely did not see the draw in Bing – which is another major misstep in MS’s plan here); they watched Youtube videos a lot; they sent e-mails through G-Mail, shared documents on Docs and did it all through Google Chrome. Integration with all of that (as well as the major “It’s not Facebook” feature) is what gave G+ a userbase at all.
By contrast, Microsoft’s online presence is actually relatively limited. Internet Explorer usage is tanking; MSN Video is not even close to begin a competitor to Youtube; Bing really isn’t close to being a competitor to Google; Hotmail survives, but arguably has been in Gmail’s shadow for some time now (especially due to the rise of Android) and while a lot of people will have a Live account thanks to Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger or Xbox Live, it’s not half as integrated and crucial to Microsoft’s business as Google’s user accounts are. Demonstrated here even further by the fact Microsoft needs to piggyback its competitor’s accounts to open the system up.
Ultimately, just how much of an influence does Microsoft -really- have on your day to day internet usage? Outside of likely providing the Operating System in the first place, it’s likely to be limited. (Excepting forced situations, of course, such as locked down work computers on IE with an MSN homepage).
Microsoft’s got a lot of power, but ultimately, Google’s got them beat in almost all respects when it comes to being an integral part of a user’s online experience. Google was able to leverage that into making a good social platform with a mildly active userbase. Microsoft has no such real leverage and short of forcefully redirecting Windows users to their site instead of their competitors, it’s likely going to be as redundant and forgotten as Bing.
Any word on business accounts for So.cl?
Wow. I was just thinking I needed another social network in my life
The So.cl interface is pretty nice, as it is clutter free at the moment. And the search thing is pretty nice but apart from that I don’t think it’s got anything really going for it.
Unless MS integrate this with their other products (hotmail, xbox, WP, bing) it’s not really going to catch on, and even then I don’t think it will be too popular.
To be fair to Microsoft this isn’t and was never meant to be a social network competitor to Facebook, Twitter or Google+ – it’s been online for a long time, and is very much just a research project for them. Perhaps to see how they could better intergrate social networking features into their existing services (just like Bing is about to do).