SOCL officially open to users

Absrtact: Microsoft's own social networking site project SOCL is officially open to users today. Anyone who has a Facebook account or a Microsoft Web service account can log in. SOCL is not a social networking site in the traditional sense, and it looks more like

Microsoft's own social networking site project, SOCL, is officially open to users today. Anyone who has a Facebook account or a Microsoft Web service account can log in.

SOCL is not a traditional social networking site, and it looks more like a Pinterest than a Facebook page from a picture-filled homepage, a site that did not emphasize the image when it was originally launched. So.cl is a project of Microsoft's "future Social Experience" lab (FUSE Lab). The project released a beta release last year, but the site was used only by Microsoft employees and college students.

Users can now register the site directly, randomly browse the contents of the home page, or search for topics to look for by using Bing's support. To post, users need to look for photos, videos, links, etc. from other sites, and socl the material into a readable article in its natural format.

Users can also "forward" (Riff) or comment on other people's posts and share content via Twitter, Facebook, or email. The user's homepage is made up of users ' posts, as well as personal interests and concerns, no features like the Facebook picture wall, and no 140-word restrictions on Twitter.

The site's emphasis on making friends is weaker than the content. If a user logs on with a Facebook account, Socl automatically finds relevant Facebook friends, and so.cl itself encourages users to contact others based on their posts and interests.

Whether to compete with Facebook

The problem with the industry is whether Microsoft is ready to compete with Facebook. SOCL itself does not have much resemblance to Facebook. Like Pinterest, Microsoft's social networking site is more like a good place to spend time looking than a friend, rather than a tool to communicate with friends.

Microsoft also knows the limits of SOCL. On the website's introduction page, the company says SOCL is not designed to compete with existing social networking sites, but rather a "pilot project with some simple features." ”

Microsoft is trying to build a unified, cross-platform industry chain. The company has deployed hardware such as surface tablets, software (Windows 8 systems), search engines (Bing), and now is its own social networking site. The company has recently made frequent rallies, and Twitter's # topic has become one of the tools for advertising marketing.

But the old question remains: whether the company can eliminate its outdated image and successfully enter a new era of touch and social control. The answer is likely to depend on the success of SOCL.