If you’re one of the people who has been using So.cl for any period of time, you’re in for a sad surprise. Microsoft’s experimental social network is being shut down as early as March 15th, bringing to an end the nearly 5 years of uptime the website has enjoyed.
Socl has been a wonderful outlet for creative expression, as well as a place to enjoy a supportive community of like-minded people, sharing and learning together. 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 end of the website isn’t a massive surprise, considering it didn’t enjoy major traffic or frequent updates (the last major update seems to have been in 2014,) but it will still be remembered fondly. The website’s effort to inspire and to help its users share their artwork and photographs was exceptional, and will hopefully inspire future projects for the team.
We don’t know what the team behind So.cl is going on to next, but we’ll be keeping an eye out. People who frequently used the website may be interested in moving off to similar services like Tumblr or Pinterest, although there’s nothing out there that quite matches the services that So.cl provided.
