As someone who’s owned a web design company for over 10 years, I’m pretty picky about the technologies I use, especially my web browser. Think about it . . . a stock broker doesn’t look at just any ole stock ticker, anymore than a master craftsman would use any ole set of tools. Professionals require tools that suit their needs and perform to their expectations. When you use those tools in your personal life too, the ante gets raised even higher!
[Photo Credit]
Enter Flock
I’ve been a Mozilla Firefox user for a few years now and I absolutely love it. It’s free, stable and you can add on new features to the product to really customize the experience. I stumbled across an article a while back called "50 Firefox Add-ons you should DEFINITELY use". It’s a pretty comprehensive list. I found that many of the extensions listed were one’s I currently use or had tried.
So one day I was in the "clickstream of consciousness" and I read a comment somewhere about this web browser called Flock. I’m a pretty tech savvy person, so I was surprised that I hadn’t heard of that one before. I decided to investigate!
Flock is a Mozilla based browser, meaning that it is based on the same web engine as Firefox. Well that made me sit up straight and smile! I found my way to their web site and downloaded it for free. Once I had it installed, I realized that it’s like a blinged out 1st cousin of Firefox for the Web 2.0 world.
It’s filled with all of these integrated social networking features and capabilities. Here’s the rundown:
People
The "People" sidebar gives you access to your list of friends/contacts in sites like Facebook, MySpace, Digg and a bunch of others. Facebook is where all of my people live. Like many modern day Internet users, I’m managing a Facebook addiction and like my golf, gadget and good food addictions, I’m not really trying to beat the habit. Anything that makes it easier to interact with my people is fine by me!!
When I open the browser, I see a nice list of all of my Facebook friends down the left side. The ones who’ve updated their profile/status most recently appear at the top of the list and Flock makes a little media icon glow if they’ve added new pics or vids. You also get an excerpt of their latest posting to their wall and a shortcut list of frequently performed actions for each friend (like message, poke, share link, wall post, etc.).
As for your own info, it shows numbers next to icons for new messages, pokes, friend and group requests. You can also upload media directly using an upload tool built right into the sidebar!
Media
The media section brings up this bar that lets you search Youtube, Flickr, Picassa and a bunch of other media sites for images and video. The cool thing is that the search results appear in the bar without having to go to those sites until you’re ready to watch the video or see a larger version of the image. This is a real time saver. You can position the media bar towards the top of the browser (default) or at the bottom (that’s my preference).
Let’s say you want to find a great image on Flickr of a beautiful ocean sunset. You just type it into the search box and results appear almost instantly. Holding your mouse over each thumbnail will bring up a larger preview in a little popup (see image below) and you can click on the thumbnail to see the full size version.
You can share videos and images with your friends by simply dragging the thumbnail of the video or image directly to that friend’s listing on your People Sidebar. How easy is that?!
Other Sidebars
RSS Feeds
Flock’s RSS Feed sidebar keeps a running list of the feeds you’re subscribed to. You have the option to view the list of articles in any one feed in a single or two column layout. You can also adjust how much of the article is visible from the feeds section (i.e. the headline only, an excerpt or the full article).
Webmail
Flock gives you one click access to your favorite webmail accounts.
Web Clipboard
The web clipboard is a pretty cool feature. You can drag and drop text, links and images to save them for later use. I only use it occasionally when I come across a quote or interesting saying that I want to save.
Favorites
Flock let’s you save favorites both locally (like any good browser) and online. You can login to online bookmarking sites like del.icio.us or ma.gnolia.com and save your bookmarks there. You can also publish your local bookmarks to your online bookmark accounts.
Blog Editor
Flock has a pretty decent built-in blog editor. You can configure it to connect to Blogger, Blogsome, LiveJournal, Typepad, Wordpress, Xanga or a self hosted blog you may have. It’s got all of the basic editing capabilities you need, though I prefer Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer when composing for my blog.
The Verdict!
So, I’ve given Flock a go for a couple months now and here’s the verdict. I’m sold!!! Flock is really cool and I’ve been able to install all of my favorite FireFox addons!! Truth be told, some of them don’t operate flawlessly like they do in Firefox, but it’s not a deal breaker. Now I’ve got the best of both worlds!
Set yourself apart from the flock!!
"The most innovative member of a group is very often perceived as a deviant from the social systems."
- Everett Rogers
Communications Scholar and Pioneer
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Hey Geuka,
Thanks so much for the great post about Flock! We really appreciate you spreading the word.
By the way, in case you haven’t yet discovered one of Flock’s coolest features: try dragging anything (an image is the most visually exciting) from any webpage to a friend in the People sidebar. :)
Keep up the Flock’n'roll!
Evan Hamilton
Flock Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
Thanks so much for your comment Evan. Flock is really awesome and I’m happy to tell all I know about it. A special thanks to you and your team for bringing this awesome product to life!!