Microsoft has launched its social media platform SOCL, which will combine functionality from search engine Bing and Pinterest’s graphic heavy interface.
The social networking site, which has been in use in-house by employees and college students, yesterday opened up its doors to users with accounts in Microsoft and competitor Facebook.
Born from Microsoft research labs, SOCL has a landing page filled with photo collages as well as videos. To create a post, users are expected to generate their own collection from photos and videos they can easily access from the Web through the search engine Bing and the website will create a collage for you.
They can afterwards add a caption to the collage and tag to interest other users of the same interest. They can as well comment or ‘riff’ on other people’s posts and share them to appear on their page. SCOL also offers an easy way to identify people with similar interests whom users can easily tell by their post.
There is however a general feeling that the page is emphasizing more on contents than linking people together a common feature with many social networks. For people who like visiting photo or art galleries, SCOL is one big art gallery to say the least.
Microsoft saysSOCL is just a mere research project from Microsoft research FUSE labs and a platform for people with similar interest to share beautiful post.
On general review, SCOL is not likely to become a competitor for other main social networking sites at its present form, and will need more expansion to connect people. For now, it is more beneficial as an app that can be used by other social networks.
