Closed Chapter

Microsoft shut down Socl – a social network it had made public in 2012 which did not gain much popularity – on March 15. The network, in its initial days, was a research tool primarily aimed at students and social searches, and later was introduced as a social networking site by Microsoft. “In supporting you, Socl’s unique community of creators, we have learned invaluable lessons in what it takes to establish and maintain a community as well as introduce novel new ways to make, share and collect digital stuff we love,” the network’s developer team wrote in a blog post. The site was an interesting mix of social interaction, sharing and search, but was never able to gain traction like its other competitors and remained a research project.