Microsoft takes the wraps off its other social effort, So.cl. And unless you're truly curious, you'd be best to steer clear.
Late last year, Microsoft introduced its very tepid approach to social, called So.cl. Back in December the veils were first lifted from the project, and Microsoft was taking Facebook’s early approach by going after college kids and using interest graphs to help them build connections. Back then, it was only available to a handful of college kids around the country, and now it’s open to the masses. Even still, don’t hedge your bets on its long term success.
So.cl promises all of the tenants we’ve come to expect in our social applications: social search, multimedia experiences, and interest discovery. But none of it works, unless “works” is widely open to interpretation.
After connecting So.cl with your Facebook or Windows Live account, you’re launched into a very confusing service. The feed is full of information but none of it seems human. You’ll see Wikipedia entries, image search results, and “riffs.” The river, which is where all content is created and viewed, is more or less just a location for users’ searches conducted within So.cl – which is a really boring way to make a social network. The new social features from Bing do a better, cleaner job of connecting the two.
So the feed fails to engage interest or make a ton of sense, and that probably has something to do with not knowing who these people are. You automatically follow the “most popular” users on the site, and without the context of knowing these people at all, their activity is nonsensical at best, annoying at worst.
Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/microsoft-introduces-new-social-app-so-cl-so-bad-it-makes-bing-look-flawless/
