Microsoft planning social search tool called Tulalip?


15 Jul 2011

Microsoft accidentally published a website called Tulalip online, suggesting it may be planning a social search service.

Fusible found out that Microsoft owned the domain socl.com, which revealed an non-operational landing page describing what appeared to be a social search tool.

“With Tulalip you can Find what you need and Share what you know easier than ever”, read the homepage. The name Tulalip derives from a Native American tribe located near where Microsoft is headquartered.

The site appeared to allow users to log in with Facebook and Twitter accounts, suggesting it may not be Microsoft’s bid to create its own social network. It could integrate with Microsoft’s existing search engine Bing.

However, the site is now down and socl.com now hosts a message from Microsoft saying it is an internal project. It’s not clear at this point if it will be released to the public at a later stage.

“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,” reads the current message.