
Microsoft launches so.cl - stdclass
http://www.so.cl/?1
======
alpb
Here's what I observed

\- Very slow response time to requests to the server. (4x of Facebook response
time)

\- Serious usability and JavaScript problems.

\- Main point did not made clear. Just signed up, auto-followed 12 friends and
still no idea what to do with it or why would I use it.

\- Back button does not work at some cases with AJAX URLs with URL hashes
(.../#/foo). Breaking the web experience.

------
huhtenberg
> So.cl (pronounced "social")

💩 (pronounced "so-dot-cl")

Sorry, couldn't resist. Microsoft should really stop underpaying their
marketing people so that they would stop producing kaka for branding. If Bing
was a red flag, this is really someone having a field day. How would they
_ever_ settle on "s-o-dot-k-l" being "pronounced social" is beyond me. The
logo looks like a diver with snorkel tube on a side. The /S/ is completely
f#cked up in terms of glyph design, it is unbalanced and appears to be falling
to the left. A wordmark that looks like retarded smiley that lacks any sort of
concept subtlety, and a name that sounds like a chemical compound, based off a
poisonous gas that was unleashed by sneaky Germans during WWI. Perfect all
over.

~~~
rudiger
What's wrong with name of Bing?

~~~
huhtenberg
Have you seen the logo?

------
jbigelow76
Google execs are breathing a sigh of relief, now when asked about Google+
usage they can say "... could be worse, look at so.cl"

~~~
derekerdmann
Except that Google+ is the new backbone of Google, not a research project.

------
bflesch
Sadly, this site has some security vulnerabilities. Although I have reported
them to Socl@microsoft.com, I am not sure if my message will reach its
intended destination as the "support" forum is inaccessible to me.

Just typing this out in case a member of MS Research is reading along and
wants to contact me directly.

Edit: Just got a reply after less than 5 minutes had passed. They are notified
and take appropriate steps. :-)

~~~
HarshaThota
Might want to include your email in your profile.

~~~
wcdolphin
And perhaps something of a report?

~~~
bflesch
I will post a report here as soon as the issue is resolved. Basically it is
plain XSS and one more thing so nothing overwhelmingly critical for them to
fix.

------
sparkie
The technology doesn't attract people - people attract people. Microsoft have
yet again missed the basic concept of social networking. Is it really that
difficult to figure out?

As so.cl has no users, it can hardly be considered a social network. So far
it's just a shell of a website with nothing to attract anyone into it.

If you wanna break into the social networking industry, stop creating useless
technology and start creating communities.

------
sriramk
Since this is from Lili Cheng's team, I suspect this is a MSR/Labs effort as
opposed to a full-blown 'product'. That team is spectacular -she built one of
the first social networks to ever exist - Wallop, all the way back in
2003-2004.

~~~
DanBC
> _Wallop, all the way back in 2003-2004._

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "one of the first". Friendster got
1 million users before anyone else, and was launched 2002. PlanetAll launched
1996. SixDegrees launched 1997. Friends Reunited launched 2000. SuicideGirls
launched 2001. MySpace launched 2003. LinkedIn launched 2003.

Social networking features were also common in many other communities.

~~~
rbanffy
Well... Wallop was one of the first... thousand. ;-)

I really hate when people claim they were first on something hoping nobody
remembers what came before.

Disclaimer: I helped build one of the first e-commerce applications in Brazil
- a supermarket mailed CD-ROMs to clients who shopped and an application sent
a text file over the phone (it was 1994 or 1995, months before the first
proper ISP launched) and a program on the receiving end would process
everything. Payment was money or check, paid upon receiving the merchandise.
The client-side was mostly ToolBook and the back-end was Visual Basic.

That supermarket was one of the first to launch a website a year later built
upon the backend processes we helped build, but with completely new software.
Later in 1996 I wrote the e-commerce site for Brazil's then largest department
store. At 10 orders per day, it was a huge success. I usually say it was one
of the first and I'm aware of 2 other stores that came before.

------
madiator
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work at all. The Done button after "I have
read the terms.. " didn't work and then the build your popup box was loading
for infinite time (yes infinite). The top bar looks very much like Google's!

------
christiangenco

        Sign in to So.cl with Facebook
    

Or you could, you know, just sign in to facebook directly.

~~~
c_t_montgomery
Was thinking the exact same thing.

------
quarterto
So, it's Facebook meets Pinterest meets Schemer? Looks interesting. I like how
they go out of their way to assuage privacy fears on the login page ("Socl
does not share your searches etc on Facebook").

Also, I hate to be that guy, but it should be "its" in the title.

------
aaronpk
Incredibly difficult to use. I tried sharing a link, and it worked nothing
like I expected, and involved at least 4 attempts.

------
Anon84

        So.cl (pronounced "social") is an experimental research 
        project, developed by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, focused on 
        exploring the possibilities of social search for the 
        purpose of learning.
    

Sounds surprisingly interesting... Also surprised by the "Login with Facebook"
option, but I guess it makes some sense if it's just a research project.

~~~
bede
Next we'll see 'Login in with So.cl with Facebook'.

~~~
wgx
Um, top-right, it's already there.

~~~
neil_s
I think he might be referring to logging into Facebook using so.cl, which I'm
guessing is not meant seriously.

~~~
kevinchen
Or logging into another website with so.cl after logging into so.cl with
Facebook.

------
harryf
> Start a video party

Don't know if anyone remembers netmeeting. Microsoft basically discovered
chatroulette back in 1998 already, although the results must have freaked them
out - lots of naked people. Wonder if they've changed their views this time?

~~~
Drbble
Xbox live already has naked video parties on the Uno channel.

------
waiwai933
Thumbs up to their logo. The little smiley face is extremely friendly and
inviting.

~~~
idleloops
And a nice short url.

~~~
kysol
Not to get into the with or without www. argument, but this domain would
benefit without the prefix. www.so.cl looks odd, especially when they are
trying to brand it as "social". Only reason why I'm bringing it up is that
they are forcing the www.

~~~
idleloops
Agree, I didn't notice that last time. Not a fan of the www prefix in general
in my old age.

------
jemeshsu
There is Microsoft Research label. Sound more like an experiment to me.

~~~
braco_alva
I thought the same thing, but also, the "research" label could be just a
safety net in case it doesn't turn out very well.

------
Narretz
I just registered to say that the "remember me on this computer" checkbox on
teh front page does not use a <label>. Whenever I see stuff like this (on a
brand new website nonetheless!) I lose more hope we will see consistent and
semantic website markup.

------
tylermenezes
This is just another example of why Microsoft is never going to succeed -
trying to force yourself into a market almost always produces a poor product.
Microsoft is always going to be losing to the startups which evolve a product
from an actual want.

------
systems
well, whenever MS makes a product that everyone thinks is inferior and will
never make it, I like to recall msn messenger, and of course ie

messenger competed vs icq which had more features, large user base, icq was
the facebook of the time, yet somehow mysteriously msn messenger took over

give it time, facebook is becoming icq, ppl who are complaining about the
interface are only increasing and its very possible that could switch

a note about G+ i believe a big reason why it didnt catch up and where MS may
have got it better, is the branding SOCL is not windowsLive+ or hotmail+ its a
completely new brand with its easy to find url ... G+ is harder to find
because its integrated into the google brand

------
nickpresta
Honestly, this feels pretty unpolished and lacking features.

The video parties thing seems interesting, but is essentially Hangouts without
the person-to-person video chat (that I could find).

Oh well.

------
iamben
My 'Everyone' feed seems to have stopped working. I've also just had a
javascript alert popup with an error...

Also irritated I can't sign in with Twitter.

------
khangtoh
The really weird thing for me at the end of the "See how it works" video is
the "A new research experience for students" message.

------
cstross
Requires javascript. Yells at me that I need to enable javascript if I go
there. Doesn't explain _why_ I might want to enable javascript, or hint at
what their doubtless valuable javascript-mediated experience might be, or even
show me an ad or a press release. _Does_ try to load javascript libraries from
other domains, so that even if I create an exception for so.cl I get the same
error message.

Is this _really_ a constructive way to build custom in this day and age?

~~~
Aloisius
_Is this really a constructive way to build custom in this day and age?_

No offense, but is browsing without javascript enabled really a way to use the
internet in this day and age?

~~~
craigvn
Only paranoid geeks browse without Javascript.

~~~
will_work4tears
Only paranoid geeks refuse to enable Javascript when prompted. ;)

For awhile there I'd surf with JS off, but enable them when I get to a site I
want to see.

Now though, every site seems to have JS as a requirement so I don't even
bother. It was becoming a hassle.

------
obilgic
They literally lower the quality of competition by just duplicating other
social networks.

------
lemil
Anyone got screens? The website shows up as a blank screen on my tablet.

~~~
clebio
Seconding this. I've tried it in Chrome, Firefox, and IE9 and it fails almost
every time (strange too that it's inconsistent). IE9 is actually the worst,
giving just "The view named 'Anonymous' does not derive from the ViewBase
class."

------
moondowner
This seems like Google +1 but with the ability to comment/discuss?

~~~
msabalau
The difference they are promoting is sharing search engine results, and other
content:

<http://www.so.cl/about/faq>

For example, I created a post about a tabletop game I ran this weekend, and
was able to search within the posting process and quickly add two images
related to the status update.

------
ArekDymalski
I wonder if Google+ bashing will target so.cl now. Probably not because
Microsoft was clever enough to launch it quietly and call it 'experiment' not
'Facebook killer'.

~~~
nextparadigms
And will probably get no users, too. Also Google did call it something close
to an experiment. It was the media that called it Facebook killer, just like
they called Wolfram the Google killer when they launched.

------
phmagic
with a domain like that, I had expectations of an awesome URL shortener. I
wonder how much they paid for the domain?

~~~
glimcat
On Microsoft scales, very little. Particularly as a share of the project's
overall branding and marketing spend.

------
twiceaday
Another Microsoft "me too".

------
majani
DOA because no mobile site.

~~~
bthomas
Agree completely. I tried to check it out on nexus galaxy. Facebook login
didn't work, still not sure why as the popup was disfunctional. Will probably
never visit again.

~~~
toemetoch
Opera mini on Android I get an error in a red box:

"Error binding 'function(){}' view

ReferenceError: Undefined variable: localStorage"

------
54mf
Uh, on a Sunday? Weird.

------
thomasfl
Yawn.

------
drivebyacct2
Yikes. This is a really blatant mash of Google+/FB with no mobile presence and
an enormous identity crisis. They even basically straight up stole "circles"
and even use "Circles" as the bullet icon for the <ul> displaying them under
"Feed". The "dropdown popup" on each post looks pixel for pixel identical to
G+'s, "Video Party" = Hangout (which would be hard to beat anyway as Hangouts
are impressive if you've not used them lately and will soon be 100% plugin
free), FB's "What's on your mind" = So.cl's "What is on your mind".

Is there anything new or original here at all, except for some bad "text as
images" and other MSN/Live/Microsoft account styling cues? Good god, this is
just, embarrassing.

~~~
johnchristopher
_Is there anything new or original here at all, except for some bad "text as
images" and other MSN/Live/Microsoft account styling cues? Good god, this is
just, embarrassing._

Well.. my feed stream is full of random people posting barely clothed people..
My facebook random people are all fully clothed.

~~~
iamben
Are searches public?! I'm seeing the same!!

------
mkramlich
Microsoft R&D delivers again. Name one feature in so.cl that wasn't a copy of
what they already saw somebody else do, except given a slightly different name
or capitalization in order to shave off the boilerplate. Is there anything
left from Google/Apple/Facebook/Amazon/Sony for them to copy, er, I mean,
innovate in-house?

I also bet they'll claim it took a team of 50 people and cost $1B to create.
Because taxes and accounting, of course.

