SlashGear 101: What is So.cl?

By Chris Burns/May 21, 2012 3:43 pm EST

Microsoft has taken the covers off of their brand new "social searching" network in collaboration with Bing to bring you results that the whole social web generates. This is not a social network, nor is it a search engine – instead what you've got is a way to post news bits for your friends – or whatever you like, but mostly news bits we're going to go ahead and guess, and Bing will power it all. What makes this engine different from any other news sharing service out there, then?

The reason So.cl exists, from what we've seen thus far, is to promote Bing search results in as visually appealing a manner as possible. What it does is to have you using Bing entirely exclusively to share whatever it is you've got to share, focusing on grabbing you what Bing suggests is the best source for your news tip. You can also read news feeds, of course, and you've got your own profile and can make your own posts – and there are Video Parties, too!

The Video Party is essentially what you'd be doing at a real party if you didn't have the ability to physically speak with one another and had a TV in front of you with YouTube – only and it uses YouTube videos to do it, too. And you can chat by typing only – for now. The main idea here though isn't to interact with your friends and colleagues like you have been doing on Facebook, Google+, and the like, it's to use Bing.

Much in the same way you look for a topic of interest right now with whatever search engine you like to use most, click in to a link that brings you what you want, and share with your friends, So.cl cuts down the process. Now you've only got to search for what you like and hit the Share button from the story itself – but wait, you say, you can do that already in Google?

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The whole So.cl platform is essentially a reformatting of what we currently do to share topics of interest with one another. Have a peek at the first official launch video to get a better idea of Microsoft's aims with the platform, and sign up at So.cl soon!