Why the New Microsoft Social Network Failed

On Tuesday December 04, 2012, Microsoft opened its new social network Socl to the general public. Microsoft hopes that Socl (pronounced "social") can compete against the big players like Facebook and Twitter (by the way, if you're looking for how to promote your Twitter account, i suggest to use SMM-World https://www.smm-world.com/buy-twitter-followers for it).

But if history is any indication, Socl has a difficult road ahead. The new Microsoft social network is doomed to fail.

Socl will have to compete against a few established social networks. Google entered the arena in the summer of 2011 and has had some success. In May 2012, Twitter reported over 140 million active users. And Facebook, the king of the social networks, has over one billion users. This is the crowded market that Microsoft is trying to penetrate. It will be a challenge trying to convince these users to switch.

Microsoft has followed a disturbing trend in recent years. Instead of innovating they have followed. In 2006, Microsoft launched the Zune media player to compete with the Apple iPod. Today, Zune is known as one of the biggest technology failures of the last 10 years. Microsoft developed the Bing search engine to compete with Google, but it has done nothing but lose money. And the Microsoft Surface tablet was supposed to challenge the Apple iPad this year, but sales have been disappointing. People are drawn to creativity and originality, two things that Microsoft lacks right now.

Facebook is not even Facebook anymore. Total users are dropping. People are losing interest. So why break into an industry that may be on the decline? Facebook is the gold standard in social networking. If people are bored with Facebook, are they really going to sign up at Socl?

Microsoft lacks focus and direction. When it sees a thriving industry, it takes a wild stab at it. But there have been more misses than hits lately. Microsoft needs to stop copying and start creating. There have been plenty of innovations in the past several years, but not many have come from Microsoft.

Socl may be yet another unoriginal, poorly timed product from Microsoft. It will likely struggle. And while Microsoft is busy working on Socl, companies like Google and Apple will be developing the next great thing.