Microsoft quietly launches So.cl social network
In the wake of social-networking giant Facebook's IPO, Microsoft has quietly launched So.cl, its own social networking foray. However, So.cl isn't a designed to be a Facebook challenger. The project, the details of which leaked out last year …
Context & Ripple Effects
So.cl is not new — Microsoft Research unveiled the social-search experiment back in December 2011, when details leaked ahead of schedule. What changed this weekend is that it moved from invite-stage curiosity to a publicly launched product, timed almost exactly against Facebook's IPO completing on May 18-19.
The 'not a Facebook challenger' framing matters given the companies' history: Microsoft has been a Facebook advertising partner since 2006, so a head-on assault was never plausible. The story also travelled unusually widely for a research project — Marketing Land, ZDNet, The Next Web, Business Insider, Mashable, VentureBeat and others all picked it up within a day, riding IPO-week attention.
First-order effects
- Microsoft Research gains a live public user base for its search-plus-sharing experiment, converting a leaked December 2011 prototype into a working testbed at essentially no marketing cost.
- Facebook absorbs no direct competitive hit — but the launch lands mid-IPO-scrutiny, inviting commentators to read So.cl as commentary on whether social networking is a settled market.
Second-order effects
- The experiment gives Microsoft a low-risk way to explore how search and social sharing interleave, work that could inform how Bing integrates social signals without forcing a full consumer-social commitment.
- Incumbent social players can largely ignore So.cl, but the wide syndicated pickup means any traction it shows among students and early adopters will be measured against Facebook's post-IPO narrative rather than on its own merits.
Third-order effects
- If So.cl stays a research vehicle, it signals that large platforms now treat general-purpose social networking as conceded territory and compete instead on the search-and-discovery layer around it.
- The pattern — big-company labs shipping social experiments under explicit 'not a rival' disclaimers — points toward social features becoming infrastructure that platforms embed rather than standalone products they defend.
The trend: Platform giants are running small social-search experiments alongside, rather than against, Facebook's entrenched network — testing discovery models where outright competition is unwinnable.