so.cl: Bing-centric Microsoft social Network

Today, CNET, the American it Web site, published an article in the name of Ian Paul (Ian Paul) A preliminary experience with Microsoft's so.cl social network has found that this is an Bing-centric social network that may attract people who are interested in the field, but is not an appropriate application for all netizens.

The following is the full text of the article:

Microsoft's latest so.cl social networking site, a social networking service dedicated to extracting content from Bing's search and sharing it, is now open to all users. The service, which began testing last December, is aimed primarily at students and has no intention of competing with popular social networks such as Facebook, google++ and Twitter. So.cl's function is not to connect with friends, nor to share life.

Instead, so.cl is more like a collection board, where users can publish and share online content based on a variety of interests, including cars, movies and sports-all of which are filtered through the built-in Bing search tool.

So.cl has no intention of attracting everyone, and it is hard for Microsoft to sell new social services to Facebook, Google +, Twitter and LinkedIn as they are already busy with social networking sites.

So so.cl does not seem to be a product intended to attract mass-market users, and the social network is still under the banner of "Microsoft Research" and more like a project. You may find that links are often inaccessible, content that doesn't fit your interests, and features are very limited, but if you're a social network fan and want to see what Microsoft is up to, just take a quick look at so.cl.

Users can log on to so.cl registration with Facebook or Windows Live account

Simply log in to so.cl with your Facebook account or your Windows Live ID. I had no problem logging in with my Windows Live ID, but I failed when I tried it on Facebook. The system prompts you to send an invitation to my email address within a few days. So for now, it's better to use the Windows Live ID if you want to try so.cl right away.

After registering, you will see a hint window that gives you some categories of interest and people you can focus on. But in the course of my testing, the buttons in this window were not clicked, so I didn't add my own category of interest.

Now, as with so.cl, and entered a page called Explore. The middle column contains many categories of interest that users can focus on, the left-hand side is the navigation bar, which contains multiple links, such as feeds (information flow), post (article), Profile (data), video parties, and acquires (interest). Click on these links, but also exhibition level two links, through these two-level navigation links, you can control what is seen in the information flow, as well as the content shared in the article.

Add interest in the material, the next step is the "Feed" section. Like Facebook and Google +, this is a standard social network flow.

This information flow will show the public content shared by other so.cl users over the network. But users can also customize, only show their attention to the people and categories, or only to the content of their own published activities. Below the information flow there is also a section called "Conversations" (session), where you can send letters to other so.cl users.

so.cl Post page

Post

Then it's your turn to post. This fully embodies the Bing-centric nature of the so.cl, since any external content to be released in so.cl must be done first through Bing.

The first option is to select topics such as Surf or Windows 8, and then search through the Bing search bar at the top of the page. Once you have the search results, you can use the navigation links on the left side of the page to see the corresponding news, pictures or videos. There is a "Add to post" button at the bottom of each search result, and the corresponding link can be added to your published message by clicking the button. Then you can enter the content, after the completion, click "Done" to publish the content.

Another way to add an external link is to click the Add Link button at the bottom of the text entry box. For example, if you want to publish an article on the Web page of the New York Times, on other social networking sites, just copy the URL directly to the Content entry box. But not in the so.cl, you must click "Add Link" after the pop-up window paste URL, and then press ENTER. The system activates an Bing search based on the link you just entered before you can select the articles you wish to share in the search results provided by Bing.

When the content is released, others just click on the smile symbol below the article, which is equivalent to a "praise" comment. Of course, you can also post comments directly, or share the article outside of so.cl via email or Facebook. There is also a link under the article called "Riff", which allows other users to expand the Bing search based on the content you publish, and then create a content for yourself. Finally, other people can add tags to what you just published, and in this way, you can get inspired by what you publish, and focus on a certain type of content in so.cl.

Bing's information page is very standardised, listing the user's name, with a picture of Windows Live or Facebook, and displaying the user's latest activity. Other users can also comment on or leave comments on the content you are posting.

SO.CL will also provide a Facebook-style cover picture, but it appears that the system is automatically generated from user-shared content. It was just speculation because I didn't find where to change the picture.

In this section, you can easily watch YouTube videos with other users. All video combinations are based on a topic, such as singer Katy (Katy Perry) or Adele (Adele). Users can add comments in real time, add video to the playlist, and move a piece of video to the top of the playlist.

This section lists the categories of interest that the user is interested in, each with its own page, which makes it easy to see what the topic corresponds to. There is also a quick search link to find or add new interests to the data.

This is the profile of so.cl, where users can share their interests online with others, and can also explore new topics through the content of others ' posts and participate in watching a group of videos. So.cl can attract people who are interested in social networks, but not for all netizens. As noted above, if your life is full of information from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, there is no need to ignore so.cl, and there will be no loss at all. (PEI)