back to article Microsoft’s so.cl network now open to all

Microsoft’s “experiment in open search”, so.cl, is now open to anyone. Launched back in May amidst very little fanfare, so.cl (pronounced “social “) was initially offered only to students and billed as an experiment in learning. Redmond has recanted those restrictions, today telling world+dog they’re free to pile in and enjoy …

COMMENTS

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  1. Alex-L
    Devil

    Or just a crude way to bump up Bing? Presumable its searches use it?

  2. Eddy Ito
    Meh

    Huh

    So a quick look strikes me that it's a more tiled version of pinterest. How exciting I'll have to investigate further or not.

  3. johnnytruant

    I have an account there

    Have had since day one. I'm not a student, not sure why I got invited.

    My impression six months ago was that it was confusing and weird and didn't work properly and I wasn't sure at all what the point of it was. I just loaded it up and it has done nothing to change my mind.

  4. Rattus Rattus

    So you need either a Facebook account or a Microsoft account?

    I have neither and I do not intend to get either. Perhaps if they open it up further I might give it a go.

  5. LinkOfHyrule
    Joke

    so.cl (pronounced “social “)

    Sorry but I insist on pronouncing it "sockle" and no amount of embarrassing PR by Microsoft will change that!

    A bit like how I overhead two blokes in a shop the other week - one said to other "I don't use Google, I use Bing!" I nearly pissed myself, just the way he said it so enthusiastically, like he was in TV advert for Microsoft or something! It's not cool to admit things like that in public dude!

    1. Pen-y-gors

      Re: so.cl (pronounced “social “)

      na, as it's a chilean domain it's pronounced so punto say elay

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: so.cl (pronounced “social “)

        Let's fill it full of stuff that's banned in Chile then report it to the Chilean NIC.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Re: so.cl (pronounced “social “)

      @LinkOfHyrule

      Bloody right mate. If a PR drone invents a word and by default we need to have it "explained" how clever s/he's been, then it's not actually clever after all and I'll pronounce it as I see fit!

      I too will stick with my first impression and continue to call it "sockle". Better yet, I might just ignore it completely.

      1. Tom 38

        Re: so.cl (pronounced “social “)

        I keep seeing it as SoCal.

    3. Longrod_von_Hugendong
      FAIL

      Re: so.cl (pronounced “social “)

      Shame the Cl cannot be removed and put in the gene pool, using Bing - what a numpty.

    4. Roger Kynaston
      Happy

      Re: so.cl (pronounced “social “)

      Just as we have facefail - now there is sofail

      1. LinkOfHyrule
        Joke

        *Theme music from Trainspotting plays*

        sofail, SoCal, so Graham Norton, so-so, sow seeds, sew badges on to your boxer shorts that say "I LUV WINDOWS ME", so get a big fucking television, so-fas half price at DFS, so what, dont use so.cl instead GET A LIFE!

  6. shaolin cookie
    Linux

    So.cl

    Am I the only one who read that as 'so called'? "Microsoft's so called network" stil sounds more reasonable.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Socialism!

    Funny how *socialism* is a bad bad word in the US but *social* is just hunky dory.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Socialism!

      BEHOLD the POWER of MARKETING!

      1. cyborg
        Trollface

        Re: Socialism!

        Then we can kill off this nonsense by bumper stickers of the type:

        "Social is just three letters from socialism!"

        1. tirk
          Coat

          Re: Socialism!

          So if I get too excited over so.cl I'll turn it into j. socialism??

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    yammer

    Winner if any of it will make it's way over to yammer?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It doesn't work...

    My main gripe with so.cl when I first tried it was a huge amount of info pollution. Dunno if they fixed that in between, but it got me pretty annoyed.

    I searched for some topic and all of a sudden people started tagging / adding totally unrelated stuff to those topics. And of course without any way for me, the 'owner' of said search, to do anything about it. Or so it seemed.

    It was very confusing, and I didn't quite enjoy the ride. One thing was fun though; a quick chat with someone else about a certain programming topic. But alas; that's not why I'd use a "social restricted search machine".

    I do wonder; if its now "open" then why can't anyone simply start a search without logging in ? You know; to see what this is all about.

  10. thenim
    WTF?

    and the point is......

    I consider myself to be of average to above average intelligence, and I can't make head of tail of what it's supposed to do/be/for...

    1. Anonymous Coward 15

      So does everyone.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

      1. Tom 38
        Headmaster

        Re: So does everyone.

        At least half of them are right,

      2. thenim
        WTF?

        Re: So does everyone.

        So your point is, that the fact I can't work out what it's for, implies that I'm actually dumb and therefore are grossly overestimating my abilities...

        Interesting point of view - perchance you don't work in PR/marketing do you??

  11. The Alpha Klutz

    rich social media etc

    all sounds very trendy.

    Is there a website that makes shitty people fun to be around? I doubt it...

  12. Joseph Haig

    Just what we need - another social network!

    I just went to so.cl and I have absolutely no idea what I am looking at. It looks like a schizophrenic kleptomaniac's scrapbook.

  13. Perror

    And the world (meaning: me)...

    ... Met this with a mighty yawn. Also:

    - It seems at times the site goes down. I've been getting timeouts every now and again.

    - The pics on the entry page... is it me or does it look like tumblr?

    - I'm going to pronounce it "soakle", if I ever have to.

  14. fedoraman
    Joke

    Queue the jokes ...

    We've already had "so called".

    I came up with "so.what?" - any others?

    And the browser tab title looks a lot like "Sod", cos the c and the l are so close togther.

    1. Isendel Steel

      Re: Queue the jokes ...

      Upvote - because it does

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    if you have to tell people how it is pronounced...

    ...you did something wrong.

    Take facebooks approach and don't explain to anyone why the site is called facebook. apparently if your american you'll understand why, that's all I know.

  16. RISC OS
    FAIL

    I went there...

    ... now can anyone tell me what the f***in' point of it is?

  17. RISC OS
    Mushroom

    I get it now...

    ...it's a basket to catch all the tumbleweeds overflowing out of google+ ;)

  18. Steady Eddy
    FAIL

    Is it

    Is it what live.com used to try to be? Zzzzz

  19. Andy_H
    Facepalm

    That took long...

    So I visited the site, to be presented with someone's random photo album of women wearing very little.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I must be getting old.

    I opened that and it was just a confusing mass of visual noise. Whatever happened to clean, easy to navigate, simple webdesign?

  21. turnip handler
    WTF?

    But where do I get a cool t-shirt??

    My fav bit from the about page: http://www.so.cl/about

    ==================

    How do I get the cool Socl t-shirt I see in many of your profile pictures?

    Socl t-shirts are available for purchase here.

    http://www.zazzle.com/soclfuselabs

    ==================

    Did anyone really ask that??

    1. RISC OS

      Re: But where do I get a cool t-shirt??

      I think you can buy them from tw.at (pronounced twait)

  22. The BigYin

    What is it about?

    I see no posts with any real meat, just lots of "look at my blog!" crap and heaps of flashing pictures (some NSFW). I guess the flashing pictures and squares ties in with the Win8 tiles.

  23. andy 103

    Presenting (uninteresting) content

    The problem with this - and many other sites like it - is that they just aggregate and then present boring content uploaded by boring people.

    These sites don't particularly "do" anything. What would be novel is if someone could come up with some smart algorithms for filtering out rubbish automatically - without manual moderation - and then give the best search results to users based on their search. I'm yet to see a site which does this properly.

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