Socl pronounced ‘Social’ is a social networking service and search engine operated by Microsoft. Currently in public beta, it appears similar at first glance to other social networks such as Facebook, Pininterest and Twitter. It was initially only available to students at a handful of American Universities such as the University of Washington, Syracuse University and New York University.
Due to its late development, this social media network will find it particularly difficult to establish a foothold amongst the big names like Facebook. However, Socl is designed in such a way where all social media networks are combined, because of this users are able to share material and seek others with a similar interest with ease. The real drawback to using Socl at present is that it does not have many users, however with the right investment and marketing, it could bring a really unique, refreshing social network to life by combining the USPs of each major player in the social media market. Due to the fact that it is Microsoft behind the project, you can almost be certain that it will get receive more coverage as the testing phase of the website ends. Once it is released to the public on a commercial basis, we will have a true idea of how successful it actually is. At present this social media platform is just finding its feet, so in reality you can’t expect it to have the same level of coverage other social networks have had for years.
There are some features of Socl that are particularly clever. One that particularly impressed me is the Picotale feature, a feature that lets users type in some text, and a picture relevant to the text will appear together with the text in one Image. This can then be shared to all the other usual social networks that you may use. Another potentially exciting aspect of Socl is that you can add photos and put them together in a collage of different images. This creates a fun, lively way in which you can tag related photos to share with friends and colleagues. The Video Party aspect of Socl is perhaps less unique than the other features. It allows users to group and tag a group of videos, for instance videos associated with a particular brand or interest. As far as I am aware, you can currently do this on most video sharing websites, most notably YouTube.
So would I recommend it to other users? Sure, but in truth there is nothing that is truly outstanding here. Other social media networks cottoned on to the fact that integrating their network with others could potentially add to their success. If features such as the collage or Picotale were expanded and developed, this social media platform might attract more people. As it is, it is designed for a niche market of social media users and bloggers who want to make sharing items on different social media platforms easier.
If you have a spare hour or two, why not try it out for yourself and let us know what you think on Twitter @GiraffeSM !
