Oops! Microsoft Lets Possible Social Media Plans Slip

Posted 07/15/2011 at 10:58am | by Brad Chacos

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As far as social media is concerned, Microsoft's more of an awkward wallflower than the fun-loving center of the party. They've toed the waters before, sure – Bing Social, the "awesome" Skype announcement and the company's 1.6-percent stake in Facebook are all proof that Microsoft's at least eyeing the field. But a slip-up on the Microsoft-owned socl.com hints that the boys and girls from Redmond may be considering wading in the social network pool, if not quite jumping in head first.

Fusible.com noticed that Microsoft owned the socl.com domain while researching the transaction history of social.com and decided to swing by the site. What they found surprised them – a landing page for what they call a "social search"-type site named Tulalip. "With Tulalip you can Find what you need and Share what you know easier than ever," the page boasted. Fusible reports there were sign-on buttons for both Facebook and Twitter, as well as some other links, but none of them worked.

Want to check it out for yourself? It's too late. Microsoft pulled the page almost immediately, and now traveling to the socl.com website only nets you an apologetic message: "Thanks for stopping by. Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn’t mean to, honest."

So whaddaya think? Is Tulalip a design project markup, a ploy to make Google nervous, or could it actually be a glimpse at Microsoft's plans for the future?

PS: While we're being Social, happy fifth birthday, Twitter!

Image credit: Fusible.com