Microsoft takes the wraps off its So.cl social-search project
Summary: Microsoft is taking the wraps off a new learning tool, it social-search research project known as So.cl, from its FUSE Labs division. — Perhaps the best way to explain what Microsoft's new So.cl project …
Context & Ripple Effects
So.cl is the third act in FUSE Labs' run of social-search experiments: after Spindex and a Twitter viewing tool in mid-2010, the division is now putting a combined search-plus-sharing research project in front of users, framed explicitly as a learning tool rather than a consumer product. The through-line goes back further — Microsoft's research organization flagged in 2009 that search remained on its research radar even as Bing carried the commercial load.
What makes this unveiling notable is its positioning: Microsoft is publishing the experiment under a research banner instead of shipping it as a Windows Live or Bing feature, keeping the social-search question at arm's length from its main consumer franchises while still testing it in public.
First-order effects
- FUSE Labs gains a live, public experiment to study how people combine searching and sharing, with students as the initial audience rather than the general consumer base.
- Microsoft keeps So.cl deliberately separate from Bing and its consumer social properties, so no existing product surface changes for users today.
Second-order effects
- Internal teams working on Bing and Windows Live get a stream of behavioral data from a real deployment without having to commit their own roadmaps to unproven social-search features.
- Rivals running their own social-search bets face a large vendor testing the same hypothesis cheaply through a lab channel, lowering the bar for Microsoft to formalize anything that shows traction.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, corporate research labs function as a low-risk proving ground where social-search concepts are validated in public before any product-group decision — decoupling experimentation from product launches.
- Sustained lab investment in search since 2009 points toward search and social converging first inside research organizations, with product integration following only where usage data justifies it.
The trend: Corporate research labs are becoming the standard staging ground for social-search experiments, letting big vendors test convergence ideas publicly before committing product roadmaps.