Socl: Microsoft’s New Social Search Experiment

SOCL: Social Searching

Microsoft quietly opened up “Socl” recently after a few months of beta testing at several US universities. But what is “Socl?” According to the official website, it is a way to “share your search and help others discover what they might be looking for.”

It’s a slightly complicated concept, but it’s also one that could take off. Socl is designed to make it easier to find what you’re looking for by making your searches public and by sharing with others.. It encourages people to work together and collaborate as well as to “create rich posts, by assembling montages of visual web content.”

The aim of Socl is not to replace other social networks like Facebook or Twitter, but to enhance those networks. Right now, Socl is primarily aimed at students. From the Socl website:

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.

We expect students to continue using products such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other existing social networks, as well as Bing, Google and other search tools. We hope to encourage students to reimagine how our everyday communication and learning tools can be improved, by researching, learning and sharing in their everyday lives.

Social searching and social sharing are certainly huge parts of today’s Internet. It’s obvious that the web is becoming more and more social every day. From Facebook and Twitter to the latest Google and Bing updates, social networking and social sharing are now the focus of the web.

Socl is still considered a “research project” so it’s still quite experimental in nature. It’s also relatively quiet, since it’s still quite new. However, whether Socl catches on or not, the idea of social sharing is definitely here to stay. In today’s web, content is not simply read and then put aside. It is read, reblogged, linked to, shared, commented on and posted on various social networks. If you want to draw traffic to your website, you’ll need to create interesting content that people will want to share.

Website content writing, blogging and social media management are more important than ever before. For more information, please contact Toronto SEO Web Content today. We can work with you to create a website, blog or social media strategy that increases traffic to your website and promotes reader engagement and participation.

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