OpenRoad + Mod7
Two pioneering organizations, together at last.
OpenRoad is pleased to announce the acquisition of creative agency Mod7.
Read the letter from our PrincipalDid Microsoft really just launch a social network?
Posted on December 07, 2012 in Media Culture by Mod7
Any other month, and news of Microsoft launching their own social network would be a big deal. But the technology giant has eclipsed the light of their own announcements by ganging them all so closely on the heels of its recent OS launch. Their marketing strategy appears to be "saturation": inundate the channels with so much MS stuff that the consumer can't help but take notice that there's so many "cool" things going on there. But the net result of this blitz seems to be consumer confusion, fragmentation and, in this case, ambivalence.
The network is called " Socl " (pronounced "social"). It's been around in beta for a while, but the public launch is now official.
So, here we go with a new photo-pin-sharing-social-search-friends network. Ho-hum. It's too bad, really, because they're really doing some interesting stuff, grounded in all kinds of reality. In a move that's gotta hurt, there's clean Facebook account integration with their network (smart move). Posts are also shareable to Facebook, Twitter and good old-fashioned email—they're obviously not trying to go head-to-head with the big boys (well, except maybe Pinterest), which is also smart. There's also tight integration with their Bing search engine (which, we've heard, is pretty good).
Too bad no one's listening.