So.cl pronounced as Social is a social network developed by Microsoft for Students. It had been in the news for quite a few months and is officially out today. The new social network has been developed by the FUSE Labs division of Microsoft and is still experimental. It integrates Social networking and search. Do not mistake search as an extension from Bing as it is completely different. Since it’s a newly developed social network for students, it is currently active only for three schools which are University of Washington, Syracuse University, and New York University. Students not a part of these schools are on a wait-list.
What is So.cl?
- So.cl combines social networking and search, to help people find and share interesting web pages in the way students do when they work together.
- So.cl helps you create rich posts, by assembling montages of visual web content.
- To encourage interaction and collaboration, So.cl provides rich media sharing, and real time sharing of videos via “video parties.”
How does So.cl Work?
Students on So.cl can search for content and also share them at the same time. The search results make use of Bing APIs hence there wouldn’t be much difference in the search results that appear on Bing and on So.cl The search results can be web pages, images or videos. Since it is for students, the sharing of these results would be more helpful as students often search for the same content.
So.cl makes it easy to create a beautiful post you’re proud to share. Just find interesting images and links on the web, and So.cl helps you assemble them automatically into a compelling visual montage.
Video Parties
Videos are the best way of spreading knowledge, an example of which is YouTube for Schools which was recently launched by YouTube. So.cl extends this concept by making it easy to share video parties, with So.cl friends who are online. Video parties let you search, and quickly assemble a list of movies to view together with friends.
By default all the data you share on So.cl is public, though you can make it private using the options. You can also delete your data on So.cl if you wish. Currently, So.cl uses your Facebook data and you need to sign in using Facebook.
So.cl might not be a great competitor to Facebook or Google+, however remarkable changes and improvements in So.cl might make it a competitor later. How could we forget Diaspora and Zwiggo in the race? What do you think about it?