If you haven't heard by now, there is a new browser out there created for all the social media fanatics. Flock was created to give social media lovers access to all of their networks at once without having to sign in separately on different pages. Sound interesting, well it is.For starters the layout will look really familiar. Flock was built off of Firefox's code base, with some nifty additions to access not just your social networks, but your email, your RSS feeds, and your media. On top of that, without having to leave your homepage you can access all of your contact's media at the same time. It sounds complicated, but once you navigate the menus you become familiar with it's power and abilities.
They claim to cater to the "Social Animals," "Shutterbugs," "Bloggers," "Media Junkies," and "News Hounds." Let's take a look at the current supported networks that you can add to your Flock browser.
The Social
The social sites that Flock supports are Facebook and Twitter. As of right now Myspace is not supported, but stay tuned as Myspace is currently be worked on. Nevertheless having both Facebook and Twitter on the same page is helpful. Get notified instantly when twits are posted by your contacts, or when your Facebook contacts sign on. The interface is seamless and when they add new media you have a media bar at the top of the page that will appear to update you with the latest media postings.
The Photos
Flock supports a wider range of photo networks. Flickr, Piczo, Photobucket, and Picasa are all available to add to Flock. Once again you are notified when there is new media to view by the orange glow surrounding the new media button. When clicked the media bar will lower and you will see specifically what photos have been added. You will also get access to their entire photostream to view if you are looking for a favorite photo. Again, this saves time from having to log into the photo sites directly and browse the photos manually. With all of this automation it's amazing I've not seem more about Flock out there.
The Bloggers
If you are familiar with ScribeFire for Firefox, you know just how useful this is. Flock has an already built-in ability to register your blog and post directly from the window. Like ScribeFire you can write from your browser window with all the available choices for formatting and labeling. The browser supports Blogger, Blogsome, LiveJournal, Typepad, Wordpress, and Xanga.
The Videos
Finally, Flock supports both YouTube and Truveo. While it lacks in video site offerings, we are assured that future video networks will be added. You can browse top videos, view videos of those you are following, and bookmark all directly from your media bar.
The Feeds
Flock also offers all of your RSS feeds on the left side bar. I found this to be a useless feature since I did not like the layout and found it hard to navigate through. Google Reader does a better job of laying out my feeds, and giving me the titles along with the first sentence of the article to get me going. Flock only offers titles as far as I can see, so I found myself clicking on stories that I had no interest in reading. Flock also has predetermined feeds subscribed for you that have nothing to do with your interests, thus having to delete them is an unnecessary extra step.
ATTENTION MAC USERS!!
This is directly from their FAQ section regarding Mac support:
"Why doesn't Flock work on Mac 10.3.9?
We are currently investigating why Flock doesn't work on 10.3.9 but haven't found the solution just yet. You should also know that in the very near future this operating system [Mac OS] will NOT be supported by Mozilla (which Flock is based on)."
Does this give us more insight on Mozilla's possible abandonment of Mac support? I believe this is an unfortunate decision.
Overall Flock is a pretty nice browser. I found myself missing a lot of the add ons that I had gotten so used to in Firefox, but I'm sure in time Flock will get the support it needs. For now if you are not into social networks, or only follow a small handful, I would stay away from this browser, stick with Firefox.
Personally I am a part of almost all of their supported networks so I find it reasonable for my needs. Still, I look forward to their partnering with more networks out there and offering a better range of interests. I was disappointed that I did not see a single music network on Flock, surely that was just an oversight.
If you've tried Flock, what are your thoughts?
Does this give us more insight on Mozilla's possible abandonment of Mac support? I believe this is an unfortunate decision.
Overall Flock is a pretty nice browser. I found myself missing a lot of the add ons that I had gotten so used to in Firefox, but I'm sure in time Flock will get the support it needs. For now if you are not into social networks, or only follow a small handful, I would stay away from this browser, stick with Firefox.
Personally I am a part of almost all of their supported networks so I find it reasonable for my needs. Still, I look forward to their partnering with more networks out there and offering a better range of interests. I was disappointed that I did not see a single music network on Flock, surely that was just an oversight.
If you've tried Flock, what are your thoughts?
