Microsoft Vine Beta Targets 'Societal Networking'

Is Microsoft learning something from its $240 million investment in Facebook? The software giant this week unveiled Vine, a beta social networking application intended to help families, friends, or neighbors keep in touch.

Vine is a downloadable dashboard accessible with a Windows Live ID, though it can also be accessed via mobile phones and e-mail.

Select your location, the people with whom you want to keep in touch, and start sending alerts or reports to those contacts.

"Microsoft Vine is appropriate for any small group of people who want to stay in touch, informed, and involved – families, neighbors, sports teams, school committees, volunteer groups, or faith-based groups," according to Microsoft.

Vine is currently available only in the U.S. To access it, users must request an invitation by sending in their e-mail address at Vine.net."Microsoft Vine aims to create an inclusive network so that ultimately anyone can 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, kitchen phone, or special needs device," Microsoft said.

What's included in Vine?

When you specify your city, Vine will alert you when there's a news story or public safety announcement associated with your location via a blue notification. The company will pull from over 20,000 local media sources and public safety information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Vine lets you specify which types of information you want to receive -- select alerts using the Vitals management area, and who can send alerts to you in the People management area.

Have something you want to share that you can't say on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, in an e-mail, a text message, LinkedIn, or a phone call? Set up "alerts" for quick blasts of information, or write "reports" for more detailed information.

"Check in safe and well to let your family know you are okay, let trusted neighbors know you're headed out of town, keep people informed of situations that matter, or share general information like the team practice schedule for the week," Microsoft said.

Microsoft has dubbed the effort societal networking.

"Over time, the network will provide advanced capabilities to help individuals, communities, and organizations work together to fundamentally improve quality of life and be better prepared for any disaster," the company said. "Microsoft is working toward a new generation of software and services that will enable society to self-organize effectively toward a broad range of goals."

To access Vine, you must have a PC with Windows Vista or XP with SP2, a broadband Internet connection, Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 3, 100MB of space for the Vine download, and 500MB for the .Net framework version 3.5 with SP1.