

Oops: Microsoft accidentally reveals secret social project - hydrazine
http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/14/microsoft-social-project-tulalip/

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dangrossman
Last month Microsoft likely acquired Social.com for $2.6 million[1], then this
domain Socl.com through the same company. Suddenly this domain has a social
site on it (still in Google Cache) and they claim it's just a MSR project? Not
a chance.

1: [http://fusible.com/2011/07/rumor-microsoft-to-launch-its-
own...](http://fusible.com/2011/07/rumor-microsoft-to-launch-its-own-social-
network-company-acquires-socl-com-from-same-broker-as-social-com/)

~~~
pedalpete
having the header domain like social won't do anything for them. They've got
live.com, and look how little they've been able to do with that.

~~~
Flenser
at least live.com was a distinct brand. Having the domain social.com is like
inventing a new vacuum cleaner and calling it "Vacuum".

~~~
CurtHagenlocher
Or creating a windowing UI and calling it Windows?

~~~
Flenser
They named windows before most people knew what a windowing UI was. They're
trying to come into an already mature market, they won't be able to create
much awareness with a generic brand.

Think how it will be referred to on broadcast news which loves quoting what
people are saying on social networking sites as it's cheap to produce (and is
how most people will first hear of it).

"we've been getting lots of reports in via Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook and
Social"

"there have been outpourings of grief on the social networking sites Facebook,
Twitter, Google Plus and Social"

They might call it "Microsoft Social" but that's a bit long. I don't think
Google Plus is much better in that regard. Facebook and Twitter are the better
brands at two syllables and not having any association outside of social
networking.

~~~
Pieces
I wonder if Google eventually wants Google Plus to be recognized as simply
"Plus". Goes along with "Wave" and "Buzz".

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aik
I have trouble believing all these "accidental leakages" are actually
accidents. The new trendy marketing gimmick?

~~~
oldstrangers
Well it does provide them with a sort of "market viability" test. Leak some
information to see how the world reacts, and then decide if it's worth
proceeding or not (obviously not, in this case).

~~~
thirdsun
They didn't do a great job at analyzing the feedback towards the courier
project then.

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riffraff
looking at the screenshot, and actually reading the content of the small
tiles, this does not look like G+/facebook/twitter, but more like a
wikia/knol/stack*/quora.

I mean, there isn't anything in this single screenshot suggesting this as a
new "generalistic" social network , so why are so many comments to this
submission trying to frame it so?

~~~
shriphani
Hmm everyone's all riled up about a product they know nothing about. And I
thought logic was central to a computer science degree. Guess I was wrong.

~~~
coderdude
The vast majority of HN readers do not have CS degrees. In fact a very large
portion of HN readers do not even identify themselves as programmers or
"hackers." That said, I don't believe people with CS degrees are particularly
better commenters than people without them. Microsoft is just a touchy subject
for many geeks. Much like Facebook and the meme that our privacy is in danger,
or advertising -- it generates nerd rage.

~~~
shriphani
In the 21st century, it is hip to claim you're being oppressed. That said,
nerd-rage makes for very interesting material. Basically everyone concludes
everything and the entire tech crowd explores the search space of the future
of an org and the final conclusion is "time will tell".

[Disclaimer : MS intern. Opinions are mine]

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andywhite37
Part of me wants to see this come into fruition, and I think that's the same
part of me that wants to look at car accidents on the side of the road as I
drive by.

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pedalpete
Sounds more like a Quora competitor than a social project. If it weren't for
the fb and twitter logins, I'd suspect this was aimed more at the corporate
user base than as a public site.

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smhinsey
It would be more surprising to me if they weren't working on something like
this.

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Jgrubb
Help me out, fellow pedants.

Shouldn't it be either "makes finding what you need and sharing what you know
easier than ever" or "find what you need and share what you know _more easily_
than ever"?

~~~
Afton
No, why?

Also, your first example is ungrammatical, and the second is seems somewhat
awkward when it begins (as theirs does) with 'With Tulalip you'.

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notatoad
tulalip? that had better be a codename.

~~~
ayuvar
It's probably codenamed after Tulalip Bay in Washington state.

~~~
kevin_morrill
Also a pretty sleazy Indian casino.

~~~
pedalpete
can we just call it a sleazy casino, and not let prejudice creep in because
it's on native land.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Flying total OT here but how is it prejudice to describe the place that way?
"sleazy Indian casino" is obviously a personal opinion of an Indian casino;
why does he have to give less information simply because he dislikes the
casino?

If I say "sleazy American diner" is that prejudice too?

~~~
goatforce5
It's "a sleazy Indian (operated) casino" vs. "sleazy American (cuisine)
diner".

The first is referencing the ethnicity of the casino's operators, the second
is referencing the style of the diner and doesn't infer anything about the
ethnicity of the owners.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I see the sibling says "Indian" could be considered wrong.

However, again, with you post why is it wrong to say their ethnicity?
Incidentally I was plugging for American as being an indicator of ethnicity;
there's also a subset issue so for "sleazy American diner" read "sleazy Greek
bar" (a bar in Greece, though it could be a bar run by a Greek I guess it
doesn't seem to matter).

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artursapek
History will look back at this decade as the age of social networks

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rednaught
For all you social types, are you weary yet? I guess I am finally being
rewarded for being somewhat introverted...one less website to sign up for.

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ajma
Microsoft Research projects seem to rarely turn into real projects. This will
probably be the first and last we see of this.

~~~
oldstrangers
Yeah, how long ago was I supposed to see surface tablets at my local
restaurants/bars? And that was something I actually wanted...

~~~
ig1
There's a few restaurants in London which do this like <http://www.inamo-
restaurant.com/> but it's never really taken off. There's not much value add
for the customer.

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michaelcampbell
".. secret social project"

And THIS, THIS is why MS just doesn't "get it", yet. I won't count them out,
but the time to get in is getting pretty slim.

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vegasbrianc
It looks as though Microsoft feels pressure to rush and start "leaking" their
social presence to counter Google.

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jarin
I'm not too familiar with ASP.Net, but if you view source on socl.com that is
some jacked-up output.

~~~
chrislomax
I thought the same, I use .net all the time and a majority of it is generated
by .net itself but the rest looks like its been copied and pasted from word or
something with the extra stuff in there.

It makes me wonder if this really was an internal project as would they let
people loose on such a big project that are copying and pasting stuff from
word?

Or again, is this part of the conspiracy??

Microsoft's lack of innovation in general recently upsets me, I used to be a
massive Microsoft fan but the more Apple do recently the more I want to follow
them instead. I hope they do pull something out of the bag

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forgotmypasswd
"Microsoft Oops" is a great product name

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tarellel
Accident my ass, this comes just in time for the rumors, thrill, and "social
need" to combat the with the release of Google+

------
30ss
Microsoft-

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jerf
Balkanization ho!

~~~
rbanffy
For those who prefer to live in the Balkans ;-)

The rest will stay where they are.

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emehrkay
I'll never use it

~~~
rokhayakebe
Why?

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calloc
There is one social "network"/site I won't ever have an account =)

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Steko
I guess lime green is the new orange.

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blankslate
Everything microsoft attempts is so desperately uncool that the very concept
of Microsoft doing social is futile.

There is literally no way they could make this work. It's another Ballmer "car
crash in slow motion" initiative.

/popcorn

~~~
wladimir
And they're again last to the party... they desperately need a Bill Gates
again, or at least someone with vision.

~~~
robert_nsu
It's interesting to hear that. I believe it was Bill Gates' advice that led
Ballmer and co. to negotiate a buyout of Skype and comments were made in the
same vein then as well.

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uast23
I wonder if socl.com was available or bought for $s!!! Mostly bought, because
thats too cliche a name to be left lurking.

~~~
code_duck
Almost every pronounceable 4 character domain was taken by 2006 or so. This
happens to be similar to 'SoCal', as well. Take a guess.

