Microsoft Terminating Windows Phone, Android And iOS Apps Of Own Social Network, Socl

Exactly seven days from today, Microsoft is shutting down its experimental social network Socl since the Redmond giant does not have a clear plan on what to do with it long-term. The shutdown would also mean the end of the Socl Windows Phone, Android and iOS apps.

Just this Tuesday, Microsoft Research’s subsidiary FUSE Labs announced in a blog post that it is bidding farewell to Socl. The team stated that the experience of working on Socl has been extraordinary for them due to the support the creators and users showed them. “In supporting you, Socl’s unique community of creators, we have learned invaluable lessons in what it takes to establish and maintain community as well as introduce novel new ways to make, share and collect digital stuff we love,” the team wrote.

FUSE Labs also pointed out the interesting features it came up with and introduced into the social network. For example, Collages is a feature that automatically assembles beautiful posts of content based on a search entry. Collections is like an aggregator of posts to tell the story of the user. And there are also more novel ways to create and share content using different features, namely: Picotales, Blinks, Video Parties and Kodu,

Since its launch more than four years ago, Socl was regarded a mysterious social network project that FUSE utilized in experimenting on a number of creation tools and other software technologies for users. For the team behind it, Socl served as a hub where like-minded people shared and learned things together.

According to The Verge, Microsoft never had a clear plan for the social network from the get-go. Therefore, it is not surprising that the company is shutting it down on March 15. It’s not clear yet how this closure will take place, because the makers did not indicate if user data will be made available to the people who patronized Socl prior its demise. Given the very poor reception, however, it’s quite likely for the company to just take the site offline and remove the apps from the three mobile platforms.