Microsoft Testing Social Networking with Vine Groups
Microsoft on Tuesday released a private beta of its new Vine service. Vine aims to allow small groups of people to exchange important information quickly.
Vine connects users to other people and places, lets them stay in touch with family and friends, and keeps them informed when someone needs help. Vine users can get involved to create neighborhoods, communities or causes. Users select the people and places they care about most, then rely on alerts, reports and a personal dashboard to stay in touch, informed and involved.
With Vine, Microsoft aims to create an inclusive network so anyone can ultimately participate through a social-networking application such as Twitter or Facebook or using e-mail, any computer connected to the Internet, or a mobile phone. Microsoft said it wants people to participate in the way that feels most natural to them and it will extend the tools on the site to accommodate user needs after the beta period. Currently, only a limited number of people can sign up for the beta testing.
Anatomy of the Vine
The Vine dashboard alerts users about what’s happening. Information associated with the places users have chosen will appear on their map, including articles from 20,000 news and public-safety sources. Information from people in a user’s network, such as alerts and reports, will also appear on the dashboard. When a user’s friends on Facebook update their status, the user will get an alert, too.
Users can also send and receive alerts. For example, users can organize people into groups — the sports team they coach, people who live nearby, family far away, special friends, and emergency contacts. Each Vine user specifies how to receive alerts — through e-mail, a text message, or on a computer. Users can choose to send messages from a computer or mobile phone to people on their list.
Finally,…
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