Microsoft launches so.cl | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft launches so.cl

so.cl

64 pointsstdclass77 comments

Here's what I observed

- Very slow response time to requests to the server. (4x of Facebook response time)

- Serious usability and JavaScript problems.

- Main point did not made clear. Just signed up, auto-followed 12 friends and still no idea what to do with it or why would I use it.

- Back button does not work at some cases with AJAX URLs with URL hashes (.../#/foo). Breaking the web experience.

> So.cl (pronounced "social")

💩 (pronounced "so-dot-cl")

Sorry, couldn't resist. Microsoft should really stop underpaying their marketing people so that they would stop producing kaka for branding. If Bing was a red flag, this is really someone having a field day. How would they ever settle on "s-o-dot-k-l" being "pronounced social" is beyond me. The logo looks like a diver with snorkel tube on a side. The /S/ is completely f#cked up in terms of glyph design, it is unbalanced and appears to be falling to the left. A wordmark that looks like retarded smiley that lacks any sort of concept subtlety, and a name that sounds like a chemical compound, based off a poisonous gas that was unleashed by sneaky Germans during WWI. Perfect all over.

What's wrong with name of Bing?

Have you seen the logo?

I thought the same thing then I really thought about it and I suppose you can say it seems like its trying real hard to be Google. I could be way off base but this is how I tried to understand the criticism of the name Bing and how it could be perceived as a Google ripoff:

To most people, Google has no meaning. Only some math nerds and smart people realize its a number. To the rest it's just a funny sounding word. So then I imagine a meeting full of Microsoft marketing guys thinking of names that are similar to Google. I imagine them throwing out random suggestions of short combinations of meaningless syllables (think: names like Bitly but with no meaning in either syllable). So then they're all at this meeting shouting "Fetchrig!","Mocklet" at each other then someone says those are too long. Then the single syllable names come out: "Zing" Shoop", "Zune" (and then someone says "we already did Zune"). The meeting then gets real quiet and someone's Hot Pocket gets done cooking and just after the microwave makes its signature noise someone jumps up and declares "Let's call it Bing!" and Microsoft's new search engine was born.

But in all seriousness it could've been an attempt to think of a meaningless word like Google that can be used in the same way people say "Google it". So with Bing you have a meaningless funny sounding word that lends itself just as easily to the "Just X it" phrase.

It's actually so simple it might have to be wrong. Why don't you just Bing it?

I've never liked it. Probably as it was a blatant rebranding exercise. It just feels so pretentious. Just like 'Google' would if it were a new name (great in it's day.) All the web 2.0 names, seem so naff now. I pretty much cringe whenever I read one. (I think the only clever part was naming it after Bing Crosby - which you have positive associations with). Perhaps they wanted Ping. Or perhaps it's some play on Bill Gates' name!

Alternatively 'so cool'... NOT.

Google execs are breathing a sigh of relief, now when asked about Google+ usage they can say "... could be worse, look at so.cl"

Except that Google+ is the new backbone of Google, not a research project.

Sadly, this site has some security vulnerabilities. Although I have reported them to Socl@microsoft.com, I am not sure if my message will reach its intended destination as the "support" forum is inaccessible to me.

Just typing this out in case a member of MS Research is reading along and wants to contact me directly.

Edit: Just got a reply after less than 5 minutes had passed. They are notified and take appropriate steps. :-)

Might want to include your email in your profile.

And perhaps something of a report?

I will post a report here as soon as the issue is resolved. Basically it is plain XSS and one more thing so nothing overwhelmingly critical for them to fix.

Thank you for the report/email. I sent an email back indicating we have fixed part of the issue. Looking to finish the other part today.

Thanks!

The technology doesn't attract people - people attract people. Microsoft have yet again missed the basic concept of social networking. Is it really that difficult to figure out?

As so.cl has no users, it can hardly be considered a social network. So far it's just a shell of a website with nothing to attract anyone into it.

If you wanna break into the social networking industry, stop creating useless technology and start creating communities.

Since this is from Lili Cheng's team, I suspect this is a MSR/Labs effort as opposed to a full-blown 'product'. That team is spectacular -she built one of the first social networks to ever exist - Wallop, all the way back in 2003-2004.

The text at the bottom says 'FUSE Labs'. FUSE stands for 'Future of Social Experiences' if I remember correctly. This was a team Ray Ozzie created to experiment with social behavior. They have some of the smartest people around in MSFT (and some good friends).

>she built one of the first social networks to ever exist

If anyone is curious about what it means to be an "early social network" and where this fits in history, here is an article that talks about a few: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505250_162-57437460/beyond-faceb.... Wallop was created at roughly the same time as friendster, myspace, linkedin, and tribe.net.

> Wallop, all the way back in 2003-2004.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "one of the first". Friendster got 1 million users before anyone else, and was launched 2002. PlanetAll launched 1996. SixDegrees launched 1997. Friends Reunited launched 2000. SuicideGirls launched 2001. MySpace launched 2003. LinkedIn launched 2003.

Social networking features were also common in many other communities.

I remember Swedens first social network, StajlPlejs, started at 96 and changed name to LunarStorm in 2000. Had about 20% of Sweden on that site. Well before 2004.

I'd say the first social network I ever saw was Prodigy in 1991. AOL also had social networking features, as did Yahoo! and MSN.

Well... Wallop was one of the first... thousand. ;-)

I really hate when people claim they were first on something hoping nobody remembers what came before.

Disclaimer: I helped build one of the first e-commerce applications in Brazil - a supermarket mailed CD-ROMs to clients who shopped and an application sent a text file over the phone (it was 1994 or 1995, months before the first proper ISP launched) and a program on the receiving end would process everything. Payment was money or check, paid upon receiving the merchandise. The client-side was mostly ToolBook and the back-end was Visual Basic.

That supermarket was one of the first to launch a website a year later built upon the backend processes we helped build, but with completely new software. Later in 1996 I wrote the e-commerce site for Brazil's then largest department store. At 10 orders per day, it was a huge success. I usually say it was one of the first and I'm aware of 2 other stores that came before.

In my mind, LiveJournal (April 1999) is the first really successful "social network". And as far as I can tell, it's the oldest one of any particular significance that still operates.

I've been in technology long enough that I've learned that when I see some random person I don't know claim that something was "the first" it usually was no higher than like the 4th. And if someone says "one of the first" it usually means like the 13th or 29th or so. But yeah, I'll let this one pass as possibly legit for certain narrow definitions. :)

Meanwhile, back in the 80's we had BBSes and later Usenet and we had user profiles, notifications (only while logged-in, only some BBS instances), chat and topic/interested-based discussion groups, and file sharing. Shocking I know. Yes with simple to no graphics. Yes with slow speeds. Yes with weak computers. But we had it. And one positive it was mostly academics and techies in the community, so the minimum quality bar in terms of intelligence and education was fairly high.

I'll be back on my old man porch.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work at all. The Done button after "I have read the terms.. " didn't work and then the build your popup box was loading for infinite time (yes infinite). The top bar looks very much like Google's!

    Sign in to So.cl with Facebook

Or you could, you know, just sign in to facebook directly.

Was thinking the exact same thing.

So, it's Facebook meets Pinterest meets Schemer? Looks interesting. I like how they go out of their way to assuage privacy fears on the login page ("Socl does not share your searches etc on Facebook").

Also, I hate to be that guy, but it should be "its" in the title.

Incredibly difficult to use. I tried sharing a link, and it worked nothing like I expected, and involved at least 4 attempts.

    So.cl (pronounced "social") is an experimental research 
    project, developed by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, focused on 
    exploring the possibilities of social search for the 
    purpose of learning.

Sounds surprisingly interesting... Also surprised by the "Login with Facebook" option, but I guess it makes some sense if it's just a research project.

Microsoft & Facebook are pretty buddy-buddy too

Next we'll see 'Login in with So.cl with Facebook'.

Um, top-right, it's already there.

I think he might be referring to logging into Facebook using so.cl, which I'm guessing is not meant seriously.

Or logging into another website with so.cl after logging into so.cl with Facebook.

Microsoft owns 1.6% of Facebook.

> Start a video party

Don't know if anyone remembers netmeeting. Microsoft basically discovered chatroulette back in 1998 already, although the results must have freaked them out - lots of naked people. Wonder if they've changed their views this time?

Xbox live already has naked video parties on the Uno channel.

Thumbs up to their logo. The little smiley face is extremely friendly and inviting.

And a nice short url.

Not to get into the with or without www. argument, but this domain would benefit without the prefix. www.so.cl looks odd, especially when they are trying to brand it as "social". Only reason why I'm bringing it up is that they are forcing the www.

Agree, I didn't notice that last time. Not a fan of the www prefix in general in my old age.

I didn't see the face until reading this comment, but now I can't un-see it. Very subtle, reminds me of the hidden right arrow in the FedEx logo.

There is Microsoft Research label. Sound more like an experiment to me.

I thought the same thing, but also, the "research" label could be just a safety net in case it doesn't turn out very well.

I just registered to say that the "remember me on this computer" checkbox on teh front page does not use a <label>. Whenever I see stuff like this (on a brand new website nonetheless!) I lose more hope we will see consistent and semantic website markup.

This is just another example of why Microsoft is never going to succeed - trying to force yourself into a market almost always produces a poor product. Microsoft is always going to be losing to the startups which evolve a product from an actual want.

well, whenever MS makes a product that everyone thinks is inferior and will never make it, I like to recall msn messenger, and of course ie

messenger competed vs icq which had more features, large user base, icq was the facebook of the time, yet somehow mysteriously msn messenger took over

give it time, facebook is becoming icq, ppl who are complaining about the interface are only increasing and its very possible that could switch

a note about G+ i believe a big reason why it didnt catch up and where MS may have got it better, is the branding SOCL is not windowsLive+ or hotmail+ its a completely new brand with its easy to find url ... G+ is harder to find because its integrated into the google brand

Honestly, this feels pretty unpolished and lacking features.

The video parties thing seems interesting, but is essentially Hangouts without the person-to-person video chat (that I could find).

Oh well.

My 'Everyone' feed seems to have stopped working. I've also just had a javascript alert popup with an error...

Also irritated I can't sign in with Twitter.

The really weird thing for me at the end of the "See how it works" video is the "A new research experience for students" message.

Requires javascript. Yells at me that I need to enable javascript if I go there. Doesn't explain why I might want to enable javascript, or hint at what their doubtless valuable javascript-mediated experience might be, or even show me an ad or a press release. Does try to load javascript libraries from other domains, so that even if I create an exception for so.cl I get the same error message.

Is this really a constructive way to build custom in this day and age?

Is this really a constructive way to build custom in this day and age?

No offense, but is browsing without javascript enabled really a way to use the internet in this day and age?

Only paranoid geeks browse without Javascript.

Only paranoid geeks refuse to enable Javascript when prompted. ;)

For awhile there I'd surf with JS off, but enable them when I get to a site I want to see.

Now though, every site seems to have JS as a requirement so I don't even bother. It was becoming a hassle.

Reasons I might be browsing without javascript:

1. I am a paranoid geek. (But in this age in which JS is powerful enough to implement a SIP stack or a virtual 486 processor, is it truly paranoid to want control over potentially hostile code running in ones browser?)

2. I'm blind or severely visually disabled and need a screen text-to-speech reader. Funnily enough, JS-mediated sites truly suck for the visually disabled. Do you want your site to be in breach of disabilities discrimination laws?

3. I don't like ads.

4. I run a low power machine (a multi-years-old laptop) and find multimegabyte javascript apps bog it down and cause it to blow hot air across my knees.

5. "It's new, therefore it's good" is specious (and frequently false) logic.

TL:DR; HN is over-populated by people who confuse complexity with quality.

They literally lower the quality of competition by just duplicating other social networks.

Anyone got screens? The website shows up as a blank screen on my tablet.

Seconding this. I've tried it in Chrome, Firefox, and IE9 and it fails almost every time (strange too that it's inconsistent). IE9 is actually the worst, giving just "The view named 'Anonymous' does not derive from the ViewBase class."

This seems like Google +1 but with the ability to comment/discuss?

The difference they are promoting is sharing search engine results, and other content:

http://www.so.cl/about/faq

For example, I created a post about a tabletop game I ran this weekend, and was able to search within the posting process and quickly add two images related to the status update.

I wonder if Google+ bashing will target so.cl now. Probably not because Microsoft was clever enough to launch it quietly and call it 'experiment' not 'Facebook killer'.

And will probably get no users, too. Also Google did call it something close to an experiment. It was the media that called it Facebook killer, just like they called Wolfram the Google killer when they launched.

with a domain like that, I had expectations of an awesome URL shortener. I wonder how much they paid for the domain?

just how awesome can a URL shortener get? tbh, I'm surprised bit.ly is a company and not just a guy's hobby.

On Microsoft scales, very little. Particularly as a share of the project's overall branding and marketing spend.

Another Microsoft "me too".

DOA because no mobile site.

Agree completely. I tried to check it out on nexus galaxy. Facebook login didn't work, still not sure why as the popup was disfunctional. Will probably never visit again.

Opera mini on Android I get an error in a red box:

"Error binding 'function(){}' view

ReferenceError: Undefined variable: localStorage"

Uh, on a Sunday? Weird.

Yawn.

Yikes. This is a really blatant mash of Google+/FB with no mobile presence and an enormous identity crisis. They even basically straight up stole "circles" and even use "Circles" as the bullet icon for the <ul> displaying them under "Feed". The "dropdown popup" on each post looks pixel for pixel identical to G+'s, "Video Party" = Hangout (which would be hard to beat anyway as Hangouts are impressive if you've not used them lately and will soon be 100% plugin free), FB's "What's on your mind" = So.cl's "What is on your mind".

Is there anything new or original here at all, except for some bad "text as images" and other MSN/Live/Microsoft account styling cues? Good god, this is just, embarrassing.

Is there anything new or original here at all, except for some bad "text as images" and other MSN/Live/Microsoft account styling cues? Good god, this is just, embarrassing.

Well.. my feed stream is full of random people posting barely clothed people.. My facebook random people are all fully clothed.

Are searches public?! I'm seeing the same!!

Well, in that case, maybe it warrants a second look.

Microsoft R&D delivers again. Name one feature in so.cl that wasn't a copy of what they already saw somebody else do, except given a slightly different name or capitalization in order to shave off the boilerplate. Is there anything left from Google/Apple/Facebook/Amazon/Sony for them to copy, er, I mean, innovate in-house?

I also bet they'll claim it took a team of 50 people and cost $1B to create. Because taxes and accounting, of course.

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