The experiment by Microsoft a year earlier (December 2011) has taken a new turn now. Microsoft’s social-search project – Socl, a hybrid between social networking and search has been opened up in the beta stage for people to test it.
Originally, the website was available to invited testers only but now the service has been extended to Microsoft employees and students in information and design schools at a few universities.
Socl Redesigned
Rather than links, Socl brings image search to prominence. The home page now displays the latest posts from users just like news feeds from Facebook, making it appear more like a social network. It brings in a “Me Page” that shows personal information of a user such as interests and friends.
Apart from that, you can find a new feature ‘Interest Gallery’ being embedded into the site for letting users find posts by others on topics of same interest. The focus now extends beyond universities and students!
The site now allows users quickly create posts with images and links. The tool for creating posts too has been updated and streamlined. It has been built using TypeScript, a superset of JavaScript.
In a statement issued, Microsoft stated, “We appreciate your continued feedback which is helping us to gain more insight everyday and improve how we can all communicate, learn and share our everyday lives. We’ve been busy redesigning Socl to match how you are using it, and starting today, we’d like to give you the new Socl a spin at www.so.cl and let us know what you think.”
Currently, Socl is still under development but anyone wishing to try the new update can visit this this page and login with Facebook or Microsoft ID.
