Tulalip : Answer to Google + ,Twitter and Facebook from Microsoft?

Weeks after Google launched Google+, rumors have begun making the rounds that Microsoft  is working on its own social networking platform (Tulalip). The word ‘Tulalip’ is an Indian tribe located just north of Seattle. It offers a welcome note saying, “find what you need and share what you know”.

The image appeared briefly on a site with the URL "Socl.com," according to a report on Fusible.com. The image has since disappeared. Later, the Socl.com website displayed only a message stating that 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," the message reads.

A Whois registry search and a DNS lookup for Socl.com indicate Microsoft owns the URL. 

That raises the question: Was the exposure of Tulalip on Socl.com really an accident, as Microsoft claims, or is it really part of a wily marketing campaign to stir up interest in Microsoft's offerings and take some of the attention away from Google+?

Microsoft isn't telling.

"We have no more information at this time," Microsoft spokesperson Jackie Lawrence echoed that statement in response to a request for comment.

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Microsoft to Acquire Skype for $8.5 Bn (only)

In one of its biggest buyouts in over three decades, Microsoft will snap up Skype for $8.5 Billion in cash, A move that would bolster the software major's presence in the highly competitive Internet Market.

Microsoft Bing Controls 30% Of Search Market, Google Slowly Sinking

Microsoft has secured 30% of the search market, largely at Google’s expense, according to data from Experian Hitwise.

The new March numbers claim that Microsoft achieved 30.01% of the U.S. search market share in March — 14.32% from Bing.com and 15.69% from Yahoo Search, which Bing now powers. The growth was pretty evenly distributed as well: Bing.com’s search market share grew by 6% from February while Yahoo search grew by 5%.

Google, on the other hand, now controls 64.42% of the U.S. search market compared with its 66.69% share in February. What’s worse, Google’s market share is down 10% from August 2010, when it owned 71.59% of the search market. August was the first month Yahoo Search was powered by Bing, and since then, both search engines have grown. This is especially true for Bing.com, which only had 9.87% of the market in August.

One of the reasons why Yahoo and Bing may be gaining on Google is that users are apparently achieving more success out of Bing-powered search: 81.14% of Yahoo Search users and 80.32% of Bing.com users clicked on a search result and visited a website. Google, on the other hand, only achieves a 65.91% success rate, according to Experian Hitwise’s numbers.

While these are only the stats from one analysis firm, they match up with trends in comScore’s data as well. Google’s growth has flatlined while Bing has been on the rise. It’s a much different story than it was early last year, when Google was trouncing Yahoo and Bing.

Google still controls two-thirds of the market, of course. The search giant has been working on a lot of new features for its flagship product, including +1, social search, Google Instant and the ability to block unwanted website.