
Microsoft's New Social Network, So.cl: It's Like Google+ For Wonks - Garbage
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsofts-new-social-network-socl-its-like-google-for-wonks.php
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nickbarnwell
Before people jump on the "M$ Sucks" Bandwagon, please read the About page [1]
and note that this is a _Research Project_. It is not intended to be a
competitor to Facebook, Twitter, and such, but an experiment as to how social
search can be used to enhance learning and education.

[1] <http://www.so.cl/about/faq>

~~~
jonnathanson
Perhaps, but you have to admit that it's a bit convenient to wrap oneself in
the shroud of "research experiment" when launching a public-facing service or
application. If the service takes off, MS can drop the "experiment"
description. If it falls flat, they can rally behind it and claim plausible
deniability over the fact that so.cl was ever truly in the social networking
arms race.

It may indeed _be_ an experiment, or at least have begun in the lab. But
consider that it's got the consumer-facing web presence of a full
product/service rollout. There are plenty of ways to get a true experiment, or
learning tool, widely disseminated without making it appear to be a full-
fledged product launch. At our most charitable, we could probably describe the
insistence on the experimental nature of so.cl as bet hedging.

[I say all this as just about the last person who wants to hop onto an anti-MS
bandwagon. I bear no ill will toward Microsoft in general, or so.cl
specifically. In fact, I wish them both the best of luck in this endeavor. I
think the world could use more options in social networking.]

~~~
untog
_Perhaps, but you have to admit that it's a bit convenient to wrap oneself in
the shroud of "research experiment" when launching a public-facing service or
application._

Sure. But I don't think it's that rare- Apple has wrapped Siri in a "beta" tag
to basically excuse any and all failures of the product. Nothing wrong with
that in and of itself, but making a beta product the key feature in a new
product (and advertising on TV accordingly) seemed like a slightly dishonest
move to me.

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osipov
This is a beta product which is based on a joint piece of work that Microsoft
did with New York University. NYU recently opened a campus in UAE and wanted
to build a social network to facilitate collaboration across researchers from
different campuses. More here: [http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/features/socl-12151...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/features/socl-121511.aspx)

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nagnatron
This whole discussion, excluding a few posts, is a display of how HN is such a
shitty place right now.

~~~
MrJagil
And you're not really helping. Perhaps if you'd posted an actually useful,
thought-through comment, people would be inspired to follow the tone and
standard you set forth.

Further, if you're going to to complain, please do it with arguments and maybe
even solutions.

~~~
nagnatron
I agree.

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disappointment
The snarky article was so dismissive that it actively failed in its stated
mission of we-try-it-out-so-you-don't-have-to. I was particularly put off by
the way the author described video parties. "Facebook or Google+ could easily
replicate it, if they wanted to." Well that's the entire Internet dismissed in
one sentence.

------
arihant
"But that doesn't change the fact that any social network launching in 2012
that isn't mobile-based, is most likely doomed to fail if it wants to reach a
mainstream audience."

I disagree. If I were to make a social network now, I would still go web
first.

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sigkill
I like the idea of aggressive research by MS. I've been following quite a lot
of their projects, and am kind of sad when most of them die a quiet, slow and
painful death.

I still remember Singularity, which still sounds like a great idea. I'm pretty
sure today we have the hardware to run things like that.

------
sanxiyn
This actually seems quite useful to me. You can curate your search result, and
when you search you get search result others curated if that is available.

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mapleoin
Their copywriters didn't allow then to write _lolcats_ so they said _cute
cats_ instead?

I would cite the text, but it's not copy&paste-able because Microsoft:
[http://az94986.vo.msecnd.net/2.0/ftux/content/slide-1.png?_=...](http://az94986.vo.msecnd.net/2.0/ftux/content/slide-1.png?_=1.0.4520.24851)

~~~
corin_
It's possible they're not talking about lolcats but instead about the Reddit
habit of up-voting pictures of cute cats (and other animals), calling them
"karma magnets", and so on... see for example <http://www.reddit.com/r/aww>

~~~
mapleoin
I stand corrected.

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DudeKumar
I think developers forgot to get rid of all the javascript alerts from home
page

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DigitalSea
I'm surprised they didn't call it Microsoft+. Wow, just when you thought
Microsoft were heading in the right direction and climbing back to the top of
the ladder, they go and build a social network nobody will use.

~~~
nrkn
I thought the same until I saw that it was a research product/experiment. I
think that makes it interesting and harmless rather than sad and misguided.

~~~
DigitalSea
All Google products are released as experiments as well. It's just another
buzzword oriented way of launching products and invalidating any negative or
positive criticism of said product. Experiment = Beta.

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mxxx
what's next, microsoft's google wave clone?

~~~
av500
From what I read, it partly _is_ a google wave clone...

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shortfold
hahahahahaha

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kamaal
What is this about?

I mean seriously you need a Facebook account to long into this? To do what?
Discover information you easily can on Facebook?

Doesn't that sort of totally defeat the purpose of this? And don't tell me
about 'sharing information'. Because twitter solves this problem already by
letting you follow people you are interested in.

I'm on Facebook because most of my friends and family share pictures, stories
and jokes online on Facebook. And not being on Facebook means missing out on
many things. I am on Facebook because everybody else is on Facebook.

Please don't invite people to Ghost towns, to do what you are already doing
else where.

If this is radically different idea, its a different story. But a "me too"
social network is the last thing I need now.

~~~
nickbarnwell
> What is this about?

A research project from MSR, not a competitor to Twitter, Facebook et al. How
the press seems to have ignored this is beyond me.

~~~
ordinary
Either they overlooked it, like many people here seem to have done, or they
realised that a story on how Microsoft is in a fight to the death with Google
and Facebook is much more interesting and much more likely to draw tons of
readers than a description of a fairly harmless Microsoft research project.

Even if it's not true.

