Microsoft punctuated a week that will live in social web history with a “dot” right in the middle of the word Social. Only seven days after the brainy branders of Bing introduced a dramatically revamped, ingeniously-organized, socially-savvy new search engine, and a mere two days after the largest corporate IPO in history came down from the preeminent social networking brand of our time, Redmond has debuted So.cl.
What could be more, or less, timely? Microsoft’s So.cl event could only be surpassed by one other Facebook social fete, the wedding of founder Mark Zuckerberg the next day after his company raised upwards of $100 billion dollars. The keyword is Social.
Is So.cl a Facebook satellite, a research tool for students, or a preemptive move against the newly launched Google Knowledge Graph?
Possibly, it’s “all of the above.” Time, as they say, will tell.
We can’t help but observe that the “thrust and parry” that used to epitomize the fancy fencing between Microsoft and Apple, each company one-upping the other’s swordsmanship at a time has been supplanted by a fiercer rivalry betwen Microsoft (Bing) and Google.
A “Snapshot” panel inside the new Bing search results page sounds remarkably similar to Google’s new Knowledge Engine as if each company’s spies are doing too good a job at eavesdropping.
As Danny Sullivan wrote in a rare Sunday posting (pre-solar eclipse): “The home screen promises the ability to share searches, discover new interests and have a video party: Ttwo out of three of the call-to-actions to use the network seem weak,” wrote Sullivan. “Share Your Search? Bing itself just pitched that big as a reason to use the relaunched service.
Start A Video Party? You mean like a Google Hangout, which Google has been desperately pitching as a reason to use Google+ over Facebook? Despite that feature, Google still hasn’t been winning marketshare from Facebook.
Discover New Interests? Sounds interesting, perhaps, but will that be enough to make people want to use this in place of or in addition to the many other social networking options out there?
Imitation is so often the sincerest form of flattery, we’d almost forgotten how Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 are completely original departures from the classic Apple-Windows interface. Now Microsoft-Google appear to be the shadow boxing partners.
Bing is a creative solution to social search (Plus Your World) run amok. So.cl is a solution missing a problem. Microsoft’s first best hope is that it can solve users’ social problem on the Bing front. In that regard So.cl seems super.fluous at least for now. [24×7]
Yahoo’s Ex-CEO Scott Thompson Resigns from Seattle Board Post
Scott Thompson, the embattled ex-CEO of Yahoo who resigned last week after discrepancies in his resume ignited a firestorm, was also a board member of Seattle’s F5 Networks. In an SEC filing, F5 said that Thompson had relinquished his board seat and the decision was effective immediately.
Thompson also serves on the board of Splunk, which also has an office in Seattle. Splunk recently completed an initial public offering, hvaing claimed that Thompson was ”a valued member of the board.”
Thompson was a former senior vice president and chief technology officer at PayPal. His bio remains on the F5 Web site where it lists him as having a B.S. in accounting from Stonehill College. [24×7]
