Thursday, July 14, 2011

After Google’s + and Infy’s Bubble its Microsoft’s Social Search Network ‘Tulalip’ at www.socl.com

Yes! You read it right. After Google+ and Infy Bubble its Tulalip – A Social Search-Network integrated with Bing by Microsoft Research.

You don’t believe me? Check out www.socl.com

Now, I know what most of you are thinking – ”Oh no! Not another Social Network!!”. Or may be even this – “Its Microsoft remember! Ctrl+C Ctrl+V!”. But did not people doubt when we had the Great Orkut and Facebook was just launched??Well, it was supposed to be a secret project but Microsoft unintentionally/intentionally brought it to limelight.


Microsoft Social Search Network Tulalip
Microsoft Research’s Experimental Social Search Network Tulalip

 
Fusible first discovered the page sitting at www.socl.com, a domain that MS recently purchased. Known as Tulalip (also the name of a group of Native American tribes near Redmond). The platform also features sign-in buttons for Facebook and Twitter, the latter of which leads to an authorization page explaining that Tulalip is an "experimental app," and that it will be able to "update your profile" and "post tweets for you" (see the screenshot, after the break). It's too early, of course, to say whether or not the service will launch as a direct competitor to Social Search, or if it'll even get off the ground, though Microsoft insists that it didn't mean to tip its hand so early.

From the looks of it, this will likely be a venture into “social search” with Bing running the show. “With Tulalip you can Find what you need and Share what you know easier than ever,” reads the teaser tagline. Notice the capitalization of Find and Share? Yep, I’m pretty sure this will be where search meets share, which is kind of good news since you can’t do a Google search within Google+. Oddly enough, there are Facebook and Twitter log in fields on the teaser page, which leads us to believe that this will be a rather light foray into social networking rather than a heavy-duty Microsoft experience.

 
Microsoft Social Search Network Tulalip2
First Look at Microsoft’s Social Search Network Tulalip


The teaser page has since been pulled, while Microsoft swears it was an accident. It's too early, of course, to say whether or not the service will launch as a direct competitor to Social Search, or if it'll even get off the ground, though Microsoft insists that it didn't mean to tip its hand so early. The Socl.com welcome page now reads: "Socl.com is an internal design project from one of Microsoft's research teams which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn't mean to, honest."

2 comments:

  1. Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. : Page Says

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  2. @Sanket: First of all I would like you to know how much I appreciate your comment. You not only took the time to read the post but also took the additional pain of posting a comment.

    I just have to say that I fully agree to what you have commented, and that is what the above blog-post is all about. I have essentially mentioned the same thing!

    ReplyDelete