It appears that Microsoft is planning a new project called Tulalip and could be positioning it as a hybrid search/social networking service.

First reported by Fusible, Tulalip currently sits on the SOCL.com domain, which is owned by Microsoft. You can see the socl.com WHOIS record on DomainTools to confirm.

Tulalip currently only offers a “welcome” message that explains itself this way:

With Tulalip you can Find what you need and Share what you know easier than ever.

There’s a non-functioning search box at the top of the page, preceded (mysteriously) by the word “OPEN.”

There are non-working links on the page that say “See how it works,” along with “terms of service” and “Privacy Statement” links. There are also Facebook and Twitter sign-in buttons. In fact, the Twitter sign-in/authorization page confirms further that Tulalip is an “experimental app” from Microsoft Research.