OSNews writing about social networks? Yes, it happens, and today is one of those days. We all know Facebook is king here, with a massive userbase and a seemingly unbreakable hold over the market, with Twitter covering the more public side of social networking. Google does some stuff in a fringe somewhere with something called Google+ which tries to combine Facebook and Twitter, but it’s effectively a ghost town with a confusing interface. So, if you’re Microsoft, what are you going to do? Well, build your own social network, of course!
Well, you’re going to copy Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, remove two letters from a word (because the trend of removing one letter wasn’t obnoxious enough), and hope for the best. The Verge’s (great content, incredibly confusing website) Thomas Houston got an early look at Microsoft’s new social networking effort, called Socl.
I wish I was making that name up. Sadly, I’m not.
Socl is basically a social network with integrated Bing search functionality. It also includes group video chat, much like Google+’s Hangout feature. What it doesn’t include is private messaging, no groups, no at-replies. It’s actually pretty limited when you think about it.
For now, the project has only been tested internally at Microsoft, but that phase is now nearing completion. The project will go public soon, working with an invite-system. Technically speaking, it is a research project, so it might get killed of anyway, further cementing the idea: what’s the point?
I guess I just don’t get Microsoft. The company seems to have some sort of obsession with wanting to have a product offering in just about every market imaginable – no matter how much sense it makes or how unlikely the product is to succeed. Social networking is not an easy market to crack – so far, not even Google has managed to make much of a dent in Twitter’s and Facebook’s hold over the market. Apple’s Ping nonsense wasn’t exactly a smashing success either.
I’m also wondering if this is really what Microsoft’s shareholders want to see come out of Redmond. Steve Ballmer had to face several unhappy shareholders today during the company’s shareholders meeting, who complained about the stagnating share price and Microsoft’s hoard of cash. Are these shareholders really going to be happier now that they know Microsoft is investing in yet another social network?
As an outsider with little business experience, it seems like to me there’s a lot of overhead at Microsoft. Instead of focusing all this brainpower and talent on Microsoft’s core products as well as the next great thing, Microsoft seems to be eternally chasing the rest of the industry – and this Socl thing is just going to be another failure in a long line of failures.
This image on one of Microsoft’s blogs? Pretty ironic.
And I bet you, that it will be able to interact with facebook.
And it didn’t take to much for MS to pull the plug.
http://imagebin.org/184256
Edited 2011-11-16 00:28 UTC
For real ?
*checks http://www.socl.com/ *
For real.
This is so… Weird. Totally unprofessional and plain weird.
“Honest.”
Edited 2011-11-16 00:53 UTC
Totally unprofessional and plain weird.
What did you expect from Microsoft anyway? =)
It is far more likely to be a deliberate leak to create media interest.
/offtopic
Eurgh… the massive space wastage of gnome (and exacerbated by gnome 3) apps is the bigger fail in that image. Just look at the menu/titlebar…
Edited 2011-11-16 11:01 UTC
That is more a Firefox issue, GNOME Shell only occupies like the 30 pixel menu bar.
.. but as long as it isn’t G+ is my kind of ghost town. All the famous tech people I know are on G+ and they actually respond.
Sure very few of my RL friends are on G+ and doing anything but I mostly want to follow a few people and for me G+ is way better than facebook for that. So if I had to decide I would probably dump facebook.
If I had a wish I would force everyone to use something standard and distributed with strong encrytion (more like Diaspora)
Yeah and socl will fail even more than ping. 100%
G+ is a quiet town, not a ghost town. Miles better than the constant noise on Facebook.
Hell yeah. The fact that Google+ didn’t have a lot of the useless crap out of the box that Facebook does kept most of the mouth breathers off G+. Where my Facebook feed is mostly filled with ‘if you know anybody who has ever died of cancer/been sodomized by a wooden cooking spoon, post this as your status!’, my G+ streams have none of that shit. And neither am I constantly bombarded by app/game requests on G+ either.
As for Microsoft, perhaps we need to add them to the ‘death watch’ list, along with RIM, even if it’ll be a much slower death.
Edited 2011-11-16 01:12 UTC
If MS were to die, who would replace them? Apple? Ubuntu? I’m sorry, but I just don’t see MS losing market share, at least with PCs anytime soon.
I did say it would be a SLOW death, didn’t I?
With tablets getting more powerful, and devices like the Asus Transformer giving users the ability to add keyboard docks, and sporting video out capabilities to plug into monitors and televisions, it’s only inevitable that tablets are going to start eating into desktop/laptop marketshares, assuming that hasn’t happened already.
And if the past is any indicator, MS will just try and do whatever Apple and Google are doing, which is why they’re attempting to transform Windows 8 into a tablet OS.
Within In a decade I can see a dockable phone replacing the PC for most uses.
But noise is life.
But noise is life.
Indulge my inner Elitist Pig for a moment. Noise may be a certain form of life. It doesn’t mean I care much for its existence.
And, not to rain on elitist parades of r_a_trip and like-minded (hm, w8, that’s exactly what I want to do ;p ) or anything, but – ultimately we very much care about this aspect of our life.
After all, our existence will be randomized in a very short amount of time
(few decades …well, with finishing touches maybe centuries or millennia away if you try hard; still, a blink of an eye, in geological time scales)
Edited 2011-11-24 00:02 UTC
I thougt (after the reports) that westerners were leaving facebook and most other social networking sites in droves now and the only growth is in asia and africa, maybe i am wrong.And twitter and alike is mostly for people telling others when they had bowel movements, what they have eaten and uther useless stuff.. oh wait that is most of them.
Google does some stuff in a fringe somewhere with something called Google+ which tries to combine Facebook and Twitter, but it’s effectively a ghost town with a confusing interface.
Thom, it seems you’ve joined G+ without or few people in your circles, therefore your stream is a ghost town. I agree, but what you are trying to picture is generally, G+ is a ghost town which is FALSE and FALSE and WRONG and every bit of it is WRONG!
I posted something here for Google+ beginners, and as you Thom must be a G+ beginner( me an early adapter), we must have the responsibility to explore G+ more, especially to the journalist people like you.
It is intellectual dishonesty to post an article and report something as absolute truth, it is very obvious you did not do your homework as a journalist. By the way, I read most of your articles here and somehow favorable most of your points, but now you ruined it severely. I will now think twice and search more for proof and at the same time will doubt the veracity or validity of your articles from now on.
http://www.osnews.com/comments/25326?view=nested&perpage=10&order=o…
Here is my post:
Hey,
google+ is a ghost town because:
1. You have no people or few people in your circles
2. You want real friends in your circles instead of connections
3. As a result of #1, your stream is almost empty, thus it is a ghost town
4. You don’t read things like: “Google+ for Beginners”
Here are sample that may help you connect people(not friends in real life) that shared the same interests as you have:
To address # 1 and # 21
http://www.gplustuts.com/beginners-guide/
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/beginners-guide-to-google-plus/
Find valuable connections:
http://www.gplustuts.com/find-valuable-connections-on-google-plus/
http://www.gplustuts.com/find-valuable-connections-on-google-plus/
Startup guide:
https://plus.google.com/photos/114831291174925522786/albums/56324637…….
Getting more out from your circles:
http://mashable.com/2011/07/26/google-plus-circles/
You see, there are so many ways you can populate your Google+ stream with quality contents rather than irrelevant game invites, friends’ posts at your facebook stream.
I am talking about quality posts based on your *INTERESTS* your interests could be:
1. Photography(any type)
2. Graphic design
3. Web design
4. Programming
5. Religion
6. Technology
7. Science
8. etc.
numbers are growing.
So there.
Edited 2011-11-16 01:46 UTC
2. You want real friends in your circles instead of connections
You’ve just described LinkedIn
Still I can’t see the point of G+.
Edited 2011-11-16 03:58 UTC
At LinkedIn the public interaction is minimal and is stuffed into this feature called groups. And groups in LinkedIn are half-a**ed anyway.
Frankly, LinkedIn will not be anything like an active social network Facebook or even G+ are. It’s just your CV with connections to people that could recommend you to someone.
Alan, all I see is self deluding ways of adding filler to a G+ account, so that the glaring lack of people you <u>really do care about</u> on G+ isn’t so noticeable. Following people who do stuff that interest you, isn’t building up meaningful circles with your friends.
I won’t deny that using G+ as a way to get more direct insight in what strangers do in your field of interest can be interesting. That said, it is not the primary function of a social network.
So yeah, in terms of people one has met in meat space, G+ is a ghost town. At least the neighborhood where I haunt G+ is. That might be a Dutch phenomenon though. I’m up North in The Netherlands.
Isn’t meaningful is just your subjective interpretation of how Social Network will function. Friends are located on Facebook, sure, because it has the momentum, you can’t mass migrate people from Facebook, because most of our family and friends are there and in that respect, Facebook is the current leader.
Trying to say “not a primary function” again is your preference, and not for everyone. If we let wikipedia define us of what is social networking:
You see, friendship and kinship are not the primary functions of a Social Network, so Thom’s description of G+ as a ghost town is a blunder.
It is you who only said that *friends* is the primary function of a social network which is false.
I agree, at least in your experience, given with the factors(which you did not address)I posted above, but to say G+ is generally a ghost town is totally wrong.
Google plus is probably one of the best things they’ve done since Gmail. Coupled with Android and all their other products it makes you want to use other Google products.
Since Google+ I have:
-Used Gmail as my central point for mail & contacts.
-Started using Google Calendar and Google Tasks
-Spent more time on Youtube.
-Stopped using Facebook.
-Used every Google Service I already used about 50% more. (reader, docs, picasa, etc)
Google has done the reverse of Facebook. Applications are creating the userbase while Facebook is trying to add shiny things to keep the existing users around now that there’s nothing to do there.
If MS want’s a slice of the pie they should easily be able to shoehorn themselves in through xbox, office and Windows.
They have millions of products, users and services around the world which when (intelligently) used together could create a cohesive network that will at least create some kind of community.
I agree. In addition, Microsoft employed very smart people, but it doesn’t mean that being smart can be also an expert in Social Networking trends nowadays. They should build a better one, even if better than Google+ it is very difficult for them.
I read an article from Google nearly a couple of years ago discussing the weaknesses of social networks such as the big bucket of friends in Facebook. So they created Google+ by watching the mistakes of Facebook. Facebook for sure is the current leader in term of numbers, but I’ve found Google+ more interesting that it even ruined my work time because I’ve spent most of my time there, because of the quality of unique contents = mainly photography, technology discussion. The best thing to do first is to add people in your circles and engage in any discussion you like.
At Facebook, my interest only is to know the status of my family(for almost all of them are there) and 100% of my friends are there.
Coming up soon: Microst Offe running on Microst Winds
Or: Microst sweaty Sockl running on (bag of) Wind.
G+ has a confusing interface? Have you never used Facebook? THAT is a usability nightmare!! Compared to Facebook, G+ is a dream to use.
Actually, I believe Twitter started as: http://twttr.com/
So to me it sounds more like retro than current trend 😉
He finds the interface to g+ confusing, astonishing!!!
Google are well known for nice clean interfaces and G+ is no different.
> The project will go public soon, working with an invite-system.
So they are going to commit suicide like Google+?
Finally, a use for the money-losing Bing!
According to Slashdot, Bing has lost MS $5.5 billion since 2009.
Maybe attaching it to Socl will save it! Or maybe it will sink them both.
MS is incredibly late to the social networking party. Their only hope is to buy their way in… but as you point out, it could be very expensive… and even Google hasn’t been able to crack that nut yet.
Goodbye Microsoft!
http://www.tmrepository.com/trademarks/microsoftisdying/
Microsoft might not be the force they once was … much like IBM was in the 90s … but people predicted IBM’s death too …
Oh wait IBM are still here.
Edited 2011-11-16 19:33 UTC
A very smart strategy. Learn from others mistakes.
Toyota (1937) and Volkswagen (1937) were 30 years late entering the car business. They are now doing extremely well. Over 99% of the car companies founded before 1910 no longer exist.
Obviously you have never worked at a Microsoft-only shop. There are tons of them out there. They use .NET for coding, IIS is the only web-server, the only database is SQL Server, the reporting engine is Microsoft Reporting Services. The CMS is Sharepoint. Microsoft Office for all documents, etc, etc, etc.
No matter what the technology, the answer to every tech question is “Is there a Microsoft product?†If so, they buy it. Otherwise, they will consider another product until another one comes out from Microsoft. However, throughout this process, they will deny they are limited to Microsoft products. Instead, they will say they are just going with the best product- it just so happens that it is always Microsoft.
An additional benefit to this mono-culture is that often the products will integrate well, though not always.
It is very depressing, but WAY too common.
I disagree with your analysis about Microsoft chasing the markets. I think its a little more intelligent than that. For reliantly little investment they have the bones in place for established markets,keeping an eye out for a gap.
Facebook has made a fair few gaffs recently, if a gap opens up, they have a product in place, to build on, to exploit it. The alternative would be to buy one in and rehash it.
This is how MS has always worked and it has served it well! Take for example the Office, XBOX or Windows itself, they were going into markets that were ‘flooded’ with a Clearly dominant player. With patience and money they have now come to be in the top 3 of and/or dominated for a decade.
No mention of how MSN and Hotmail members can transition to Socl or merge it with Windows Live. I’d have thought members (like me) would be the first target audience for this.
Ping
*snigger snigger*