May 2012
6 posts
2 tags
Thank you Syracuse for helping early on! →
We appreciated the usability help, the ideas, but mostly the energy of the students involved. We’re looking forward to working with you again in the future.
All Syracuse students are welcome on Socl.
1 tag
Thanks for stopping by
Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by! We appreciate all the attention and have slowed down the creation of new accounts for a while to ensure a good experience for our community. We are still taking sign up requests and will bring more people in shortly. Looking forward to seeing you on So.cl.
Wow, thanks for all the love and feedback!
We’re going to get to work fixing some issues you found on So.cl and open the site again shortly.
In the meantime if you sign in we will add you to the list and email you shortly.
Thanks,
The FUSE Team!
2 tags
Win Microsoft Goodies for Participating in Youth... →
The City of Seattle, Metrocenter YMCA and FUSE Labs Microsoft Research, are working together to get a better understanding of how people between the ages of 14 and 25 use technology for community or political activities with the goal of improving local community web sites such as Puget SoundOff.
This questionnaire is completely voluntary. Responses are confidential and used only for the...
6 tags
Check out the exciting new Bing! →
The new Bing introduces a brand new information architecture with a three column design that focuses on bringing you information from the web to help you take action and interact with friends and experts without compromising the core search experience.
Read more…
3 tags
Students at Oak Park Elementary are bringing their... →
Students at Oak Park Elementary are bringing their imaginations to life. Whether they are magical forests or underwater worlds, students’ dreams are becoming a reality on their computer screens. Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) students are part of a pilot program that has fourth- and fifth-graders creating video games.
Read more…
April 2012
5 posts
Introducing the So.cl Bookmarklet, share from...
We’re happy to announce the release of the So.cl Bookmarklet, a new and easy way of sharing content on So.cl while navigating the Web.
Whenever you visit a page on the web that you would like to share on So.cl, simply click the “Share on So.cl” bookmarklet and start building your post.
You’ll find the bookmarklet in the top right section of So.cl or click here.
Make sure your Favorites...
1 tag
Nice write up about So.cl from Neil Vidyarthi →
8 tags
Introducing the new Explorer Page on So.cl
We’ve recently released a new feature on So.cl called the explorer. You can use the explorer to browse the latest So.cl content created by the community. Find a topic like music, food, or science and instantly see a stream of content filtered to that topic. This makes it even easier to find interesting information and people on the site. To find the Explorer page just click “Explorer” in the top...
4 tags
The super cool So.cl t-shirt is available for... →
4 tags
Announcing our Student Social Media Advisors...
At FUSE Labs we believe we have a lot to learn from students — they tend to be early adopters of social media and have great intuitions into what works and what doesn’t.
Therefore we are pleased to announce our Student Social Media Advisors Program. Through this program, we will engage in an ongoing dialogue with students, where they will have a direct impact on the future of...
March 2012
2 posts
5 tags
Video from a recent talk at Sup’Internet →
Paul Steckler and David Raskino recently spoke at Sup’Internet, a web design and engineering school in Paris, about So.cl and Fuse Labs. The school put together a video with some highlights and an interview, enjoy!
3 tags
Read what some of our users have to say about...
Today we found some nice So.cl reviews written by our users. Enjoy!
“to be honest, I liked it when started using it, but after writing this, I like it even more!!” Read more
“Personally I have big hopes for this network and I think Socl has what it takes to make a difference in the web“ Read more
“I was addicted to so.cl since it does give a versatile...
February 2012
10 posts
4 tags
Collaborative Learning and So.cl in Brussels →
Read about our very own Paul Steckler and David Raskino’s recent talk at the EU in Brussels on collaborative learning and So.cl
10 tags
FUSE Team interview: Will Portnoy, Developer
By Richard Zaragoza
Name: Will Portnoy Title: Principal Software Design Engineer Years as a developer: 13 Years at Microsoft: 9
I can personally tell you that Will Portnoy is a great guy—among the best. If this interview ended with that sentence, it would be enough. I’ve worked with him for nearly two years, and we’ve become fast friends. In that time, I have concluded that he is like a...
4 tags
Introducing So.cl Riffs
Riff n. A short rhythmic phrase, especially one that is repeated in improvisation.
Often we see a post in So.cl that grabs our attention and we want to add to it. More than just comment we want to give the concept our own spin or take the conversation to a new place. We want to add to the understanding and join the discussion in a richer way. We want to riff on it.
In music a riff begins as a...
7 tags
So.cl, now with Windows Live login!
There are a myriad of ways to log into sites these days. It seems everyone has a favorite account, or alternately several accounts they use for different purposes.
This week, the So.cl team has added Windows Live as a new way to log in to So.cl. On our front page now are two buttons, one for Windows Live, and another from Facebook.
Press one, and you’ll be taken to Facebook or Windows...
5 tags
So.cl: So much e-mail, so little time
Once upon a time, it was exciting to get notification e-mails from my social networks that friends had found me or had commented on one of my posts. After a while though, my inbox was soon flooded with mail. Eventually the e-mail volume increased so much that I started turning them off, forwarding them to the junk box. Notifications are a key part of how we stay connected to our networks, but...
6 tags
A few improvements to So.cl tagging
Collections are an important part of the So.cl experience; aggregating content and users around topics of interests is a core concept. Today that concept is expressed in our tags feature and can be used to link posts to a larger context or segregate them for later examination. Tags are an element that can be utilized in a number of ways. While we have big plans for expanding the utility and...
10 tags
FUSE Labs and DoTastic at CSCW 2012
There will be a strong FUSE Labs presence at the CSCW 2012 conference, coming up in Seattle on February 12th. CSCW is a premier venue for presenting research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations, and communities. We will be demoing So.cl in the Microsoft Research booth, so if you’re attending, stop by, check it out, and we will invite you in. I will also...
7 tags
11 year old Kodu developer received by President... →
Hannah Wyman, 11, who attends St. Anna’s School in Leominster, Mass., won the grand prize in her age group (9-12) for her video game, “Toxic,” in Microsoft’s first-ever U.S. Kodu Cup. In Hannah’s game, which is now available for free on the Kodu Game Lab site, a player must solve puzzles and collect coins in order to remove soot from trees, zap pollution clouds to clean the air, and convince...
6 tags
Docs.com is now internationalized!
Welcome Witamy ようこそ 환영함니다 Добро пожаловать ברוכים הבאים
A lot of Docs.com users arrive here from countries outside the U.S. They often wish Docs could speak their language.
A few days ago, their wishes were answered: Docs’s View and Edit applets are now localized to 40 different languages!
Although the main Docs interface is still English, it will use a user’s language...
7 tags
Social Computing Symposium 2012: The Changing...
The Social Computing Symposium 2012 was held on the campus of New York University in the Interactive Telecommunication Program space on January 12-13 and it focused on the changing nature of “the public,” and this year it was organized by: Lili Cheng, danah Boyd, Mike Annany, Alice Marwick Liz Lawley, Brady Forrest, Clay Shirky, Clive Thompson, John Borthwick, Tom Coates, Dan O’Sullivan, and...
January 2012
6 posts
8 tags
Introducing the new So.cl Translator
After launching So.cl we were pleasantly surprised to see how well it resonated with non-English native speakers. In the short time since, the site has received attention from users all over the world, adding to the richness and diversity of the So.cl content stream.
To support our growing community we took advantage of a great asset with the Bing Translator API, and we are happy to announce that...
7 tags
College Students and Existing Practices for...
With the impending release of So.cl as a search and social networking tool for learning, a few months ago we decided we really needed a much richer picture of existing learning practices of college students.
To that end, we recruited University of Washington students to try out a pre-release version of so.cl, and give us feedback in the form of questionnaires, focus groups, and interviews. By...
4 tags
Asteroids in Kodu! →
Tim Meek is a UK based educator and one of the founders of the innovative Kodudes program in the UK. One of his students made a remarkable Asteroids game in Kodu, complete with thrusters, shields and even smart bombs!
Not only does he demo his game, but spends time walking through his kode to show how he made it.
Amazing!
6 tags
So.cl: How can I sign out?
If the first time you signed in to So.cl you checked the “Remember me on this computer” check box, you will be signed in every time you come back to the site.
If, for any reason, you wanted to sign out, simply click on the top right icon (your profile picture) and then click on the “Sign out” link, you will be redirected to the home page.
7 tags
So.cl: How can I change my profile picture?
By default, the first time you sign in to So.cl, the system will use your Facebook profile picture as your identity in So.cl.
If you wanted to change that though, it’s very easy, simply follow these steps:
Sign in to So.cl and click on the Settings link on your left rail
Click on the edit link in the “Profile pic” line
Enter a picture URL in the “URL” textbox...
4 tags
So.cl: How do I leave a video party?
To leave a video party simply click on the So.cl logo in the party itself, you will navigate to your So.cl home page.
The video party will be minimized on the right rail. Click on the delete icon to leave the party.
December 2011
21 posts
4 tags
Turntable's Billy Chasen Makes Music Social Again →
Experiencing music as a social activity used to mean going to a concert, or maybe a party. And to learn about new music or artists in the days of yore, you had radio, record shops, or the much-fabled mix tape.
But in the Internet and iPod age, listening to music became a more solitary experience—the earbuds, the personal playlists, the Pandora stations made just for you.
3 tags
A look back at FUSE Labs in 2011 →
2011 was a busy year for FUSE Labs as we launched CompanyCrowd, held a very successful Kodu Cup challenge, and most recently launched Socl. Our General Manager Lili Cheng recently wrote a post recapping the year for Inside Microsoft Research.
7 tags
We actively incorporate user feedback. And it...
When you are FUSE Labs doing social research, you’re essentially an island of engineers and researchers working away at building a concept. You have hypotheses, but it’s not until you bring in real live users and watch their behavior, that you start understanding the deeper dynamics of what you have enabled.
To evaluate So.cl we needed a set of users that were “knowledge workers”. It was also...
3 tags
3 tags
So.cl: Building up interests using collections
We build collections to express something about ourselves, our tastes, and our interests that a bio or a status update cannot. We turn to news aggregators because the essence of a story is more than a single shared article, but rather a string of links and images that begin to form a fuller picture of the event.
We made building of collections a core offering in So.cl. We created something we...
2 tags
7 tags
9 tags
The Privacy Issue on So.cl and some unexpected...
While delving into this research project focused on social searching, we expected that one of the big issues that would immediately concern users was the “privacy issue”. Our mental model of searching has always been private— and the So.cl experiment flips that around, making the site’s emphasis broadcasting your searches and explicitly sharing them with the world. Furthermore, it...
3 tags
KLM launching Facebook app to match seatmates →
thedailywhat:
Choose Your Own Adventure of the Day: The Netherlands’ national air carrier, KLM, is set to launch a Facebook app that will allow passengers to pick their seatmates based on similarities in their online profiles.
After purchasing a ticket, patrons will be invited to link their Facebook profiles to their check-in information using a web tool called “Meet &...
3 tags
3 tags
Nice mention about So.cl in Education Week →
This is a nice summary and pointer to the original article Lili Cheng did for the MIT Technology Review.
4 tags
Microsoft Builds A Browser-Based Windows Phone 7... →
6 tags
How to create stunning mood boards with So.cl
Mood boards are a common tool used by visual designers and marketing teams to establish the look and feel or brand for a project. Typically this is done by searching through image archives and painstakingly building the collections in mosaics, and it involves numerous steps to collect, organize, and layout manually by hand.
So.cl provides an optimized process that produces the same outcome with...
3 tags
Nice MSR article outlining So.cl →
We’re excited to open So.cl, our new research experience around search and social media, to a few more students today. Microsoft Research has a nice write-up this morning.
Shelly Farnham: Social Media and Learning →
Reblogged from shellyfarnham:
At FUSE Labs we have been thinking about the role of technology in aiding learning computational thinking for a long time with Kodu, a game that lets preteens program games. Recently however our thinking has been shifting toward considering the important role the web and social media play in learning, particularly for teens or college aged students.
Read more
“The way to have a great idea is to have 100 of them”
– Bill Buxton - on the business of innovation (via gregmelander)
3 tags
5 tags
3 tags
4 tags
Read how Kodu is offering all students an... →
“Kodu offers all students an opportunity to be successful and to think and problem solve creatively no matter what their educational skill level.”
“Kodu is something that I can see integrating into my curriculum”
- Selena Gordon, teacher at the Kent Tech Academy
Read the full post here!
3 tags
Learn how to create multiple levels in one Kodu... →
In this article Brad Gibson walks you through a technique to simulate multiple worlds inside of one Kodu world!