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After a year long period of beta testing, Microsoft has released its new social networking project to the general public.
Socl, as the project is called, has been opened up to users who currently have Microsoft and Facebook accounts.
Unlike traditional social networks such as Facebook, the project is much more similar to that of Pinterest, as it features a home page filled with photo collages and randomly generated content.
However, whilst most content is randomly generated, users can also use Microsoft’s own Bing search engine to find their way through specific content.
Rather than focusing on friends and their relationships and ability to contact each other, Socl’s emphasis is directly towards content.
Users are encouraged to create posts by using a wide variety of content from the web, such as photos, videos and links, which Socl then collates into a collage.
Profiles are made up of each user’s collages that they have created using the social network and other users are able to comment or "riff" on these posts.
With all of this in mind however, it begs the question: If the world already has both Facebook and Pinterest, does it need something new that is essentially a hybrid of the two?
If Socl hopes to differentiate itself from the likes of Facebook, it might want to take a good hard look at its logo.
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