Microsoft Tests Social Search Waters With 'so.cl' Network 135
benfrog writes "Microsoft just quietly launched so.cl in an experiment to more closely unite web searches and social networking. It's not intended as a stand-alone social network — users can log in with Facebook or Windows Live IDs, and it will share your searches publicly by default. "As students work together, they often search for the same items, and discover new shared interests by sharing links. We see this trend today on many social networks, such as Twitter, where shared links spread virally and amplify popular content. So.cl experiments with this concept by automatically sharing links as you search." They've also (wisely?) put Bing Search at the center of the site."
Re:Probably violates Facebook's TOS ... (Score:4, Informative)
Not your login information, no. You login through Facebook itself (HTTPS) and it uses some sort of identifier system to verify the login to MS. However, it also lets MS access your name and profile information, especially email address (including friends, although those are supposedly not retained). So no, you don't give MS your login information. You do, however, grant them the right to retain all your searches and use all your public information for any purposes whatsoever, so there is that.
Re:Another failed social project from Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
Completely free, up to 5000 per month, which is still far under anything like DuckDuckGo's needs. For comparison, Google's 100-per-day is 3000 free queries per month. Microsoft's free offering is slightly less ridiculously limited than Google, but neither is usable for a successful site. If your site is popular, you're going to have to pay somebody.