There are few rumors based on the fact that a new social networking website from Microsoft is going to be launched in the near feature. This service from Microsoft is promising a new way to find what you need and share what you know at least this is what Microsoft representatives said in a teaser page which appeared at Socl.com and presenting Tulalip.
The design resembles to Windows Phone’s tiles, also Twitter and Facebook sign-ins were offered, at least now it seems like a curious website that comes from the FUSE research group wich at some point is going to be rolled out to the public. The company said that the next big social network is in beta testing with a select group of friends, we managed to take a peek at “Tulalip” and we are seriously looking forward to see how things develop in the future.
Is there room for another big social network? Well, I guess we are about to find out really soon as the site promises a slightly new social network experience for its users. What are Socl’s new offerings and what will make it step out from the line of other social networks, we believe that here is the place where the battle is going to be fought. They are looking to create a new type of status update with a larger search field placed at the top that is asking you a common sense questions: What are you searching for? At this point the interface is pretty much the same as that of other social network with a social feed down the middle, 3 column layout having in the left rail a basic navigation, on the right side video party options and some invites capabilities. Now you wont find any list making tools but as usual you gonna be able to follow other friends.
Similar to other social networks Socl allows you to post to your feed either that you are live at some concert, or that you are in search for something at some moment. Both Socl search terms and status updates are directly linked to Bing searches which are subsequently included in your feed and your friends will be able to tag, like or comment. At some point you can sort your friends’ searches and status updates by some criteria like video, images, web or news and clicking ” tag ” is going to add the search term to your personal list of tags.
Microsoft’s social network offers tagging which in theory is a decent idea so you will be able to track topics that raises your interest, we cannot imagine returning to simple tag search for just about anything from a simple news to some older browsing. Time will tell if the implementations from Socl does not advance what Google does with saved searches. If you want to get a wide mix of focused news and information on different topics that raise your interest such as Politics, Movies or Tech in some cases is not going to offer you much as there is a great difference in tagging an interest and actually searching.
Socl includes a new and interesting video party feature, with chat capabilities. WoW, what’s that? I bet that you want to know, as you may not be the only one interested in discovering that. All that we were able to find out is the fact that the video party feature comes completed with a chat allowing you to watch YouTube clips together with your invited friends. At this moment this feature supports only YouTube videos, no DailyMotion, Vimeo, Metacafe, LifeLeac, or any other service. This service promises much as it could be a fun service on its own, leaving aside the lack of a controllable scrubber it has a clean and intuitive user interface. The website presented itself with no hips or slowdown in any web browser when using different functions like tagging, searching or video partying and we were unable to see any instances of Flash or Silverlight as Socl is mostly created using HTML5.
It is obvious that all existing social networks are pushing to make the search a social experience in itself, Facebook was the first to push Like and Share feature across search results, then to be followed by Google+ with the +1 button. It is well-known that people are frequently asking for recommendation on Twitter or Facebook and often get excellent answers that search results would not be able to return. If you were to follow the traditional way, in two out of tree times it would cost you money as Yelp can charge a certain amount of money, the regular search might not be very effective, and your trusted friends may not be there when you need them to simply give them a phone call. But with social search Microsoft let’s your friends see your query and offer the much-needed help just when needed the most.
We have heard that Socl may never get released as mainstream product, but in the same time they prefer to test it publicly, anyway anyone should note that this is still a research project. Maybe they are hoping to literally get the house on fire aiming for Facebook’s traffic although Socl is getting late at the game. Also there are rumors consisting in the fact that your Socl activity can be limited via Facebook’s lists while all of your searches and tags get visible to all your friends on Socl. Otherwise there are no add-ons, in fact Socl lacks few functionality present in other social networks like no private messages, no semi-private groups and no replies.
Socl needs to make its own way into this world dominated by Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and ultimately needs to prove how yet another social network and search tool can help its users on finding the information they really need. But Socl has a really big hill to climb before everything is complete, anyway we’ve heard Microsoft is going to end its private testing period and will launch this to general public audience using an invite system but without an integration across the rest of Microsoft world or without mobile support much remains to be set. Stay tuned for further details
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