Congratulations Flock

I've been using the Flock browser for a while now and I love it.  There have been a few occasions when I've found myself back in Firefox and missing those Flock extras.  In fact I'd become so used to Flock that I'd forgotten other browsers don't have a "People" sidebar; how do you people manage.  Anyway enough of that.  You don't need to take my word for Flock's greatness because Flock won a Webby in the Social Networking category.  They were competing against such web 2.0 luminaries as Facebook, Ning and Bebo  (Facebook took out the Peoples Choice award).  So congratulations to Flock.  Your hard work has paid off.

Blogged With Flock

I just discovered a fun way to discover interesting blogs.  Simply go to Google and search for "Blogged with the Flock Browser".  This is the signature that Flock adds (if you choose to let it) when you blog from Flock.  I've found myself blogging from Flock more and more because it's just so easy.  You know the blogs that Google discovers will be of interest because interesting people use Flock.  Here's 10 Flockers blogs that I enjoyed :

• space to imajin
• S-O-S
• Gospel Graffiti
• zeitspur
• cornology
• Danyo says...
• Addicted To Placebos
• Live from Krypton
• Studio : Dedale
• Jacques Snyman
  

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Flock 1.0

Back in January I downloaded and had a play with the Flock Browser (then in beta).  At the time Flock was pretty impressive but I found it's bookmarking less than ideal and returned to using Firefox.  Well the other day I was reading an interesting article on TechCrunch that compared memory usage between Firefox and Flock (now out of beta).  The long and short of it was that memory usage was significantly better in Flock.  Which is strange as Flock uses Firefox for it's base engine.  Anyway I decided I better give it a another look.  It's a long time since a piece of software made me go WOW.  But that was my exact response to Flock 1.0.  First of all there are the exciting features that I'd seen in the beta ; the media stream browser, the image uploader, the blog post editor (which I'm using to write this post).  What I don't remember is a series of sidebars which make access to popular web 2.0 services so easy.  For example a people sidebar provides easy access to Flickr, YouTube, Facebook etc.  The accounts and services sidebar provides easy access to a variety of services (i.e Blogger).  I remember a web clipboard but a don't remember a neat drag and drop sidebar that helps you manage a number of saved media objects (text, images, video).  Great feature here is that each saved object has a link to create a blog post from the object.  The same feature appears over images or videos in the page that you can add to your blog.  One last feature I'd like to mention is that if you browse to a page that has a Firefox search engine then Flock will make you aware of that and offer the option of adding it to your installed search engines.  There are more great features and I feel I could go on for a while but I suggest you should give it a go and make up your own mind.

Blogged with Flock

Dream Reader

A wish has formed in my mind. An idea about my RSS reading future. It will look like Flock's RSS reader. But there will be one major difference. My feed list will be stored online. I realised a while ago that I wanted my bookmarks online in one central repository. That way they could be accessed and updated whereever I go. But for some reason I haven't extended this idea to my RSS feeds. But now I understand. Anything that is accessed online should be managed online. Therefore, RSS feeds should be managed online.

Of course, it's easy to manage your feeds online using Google Reader and in Firefox you can quickly add a pages feed by telling it to use Google Reader. It's a slightly awkward process because Google keeps asking where to store the feed. But it's not too painful. The thing is I don't want to read my feeds in Google Reader. It's nowhere near as friendly as the Flock Reader. I guess what I'm talking about is a feature request for Flock. I want the Flock Reader to source my feeds from Google Reader.

technorati tags: RSS, Google, Flock

Torn Tween the Fox and the Flock

In my last post I was singing the praises of Flock. But here I am the morning after and my new love looks less pretty in the cold light of day. I guess you'd say that we had a falling out. To be specific a disagreement over managing bookmarks. I found myself looking back with fondness to Firefox's flexibility with nested bookmark folders. The delightful way she allowed me to define keywords that could be used as shortcuts to a page. But Flock would have none of this and I found myself with a long list of folders (many of them now empty because each folders children were now it's siblings ; unwanted perversion be gone from my sight). So that was it. I found my mouse straying to the quickLaunch bar where my lost love awaited patient and forgiving. But not before I had a word or two to say through the Flock feedback form. Flock was quick to reply. She claims that nested folders will be possible before she makes here version 1 debut. I was somewhat soothed and have promised to visit and make use of her again. She has such a lovely way with photos and she offers such a comfortable space to read the news. Should I feel guilt for spreading my love between the Fox and the Flock?

technorati tags:internet, browser, Flock, Firefox

Flock : a life changing discovery

After reading Micheal Arrington's article on Web 2.0 companies he couldn't live without. I found myself checking out the Web 2.0 companies I'd never caught up with. Some I bookmarked for future reference. Some underwhelmed me. But I suspect that one has changed my life forever. That thing is Flock: the social web browser. Sure I'd heard of Flock prior to reading the article. But I was busy and didn't really have time to install and play with yet another web browser. The other factor is that I've recently been getting right into Flickr and del.icio.us. If you aren't uploading photos, managing your bookmarls online, browsing RSS feeds (or blogging) then Flock is just another browser. But as soon as you start to engage with the media potential of Web 2.0 then Flock is the browser to have.

Until yesterday I was reading my Feeds in Feedreader. But then I exported my feeds into Flock and for now at least that is where they will stay. What is great about Flock is that there is a RSS reader button right next to the location bar which changes color when feeds are updated. It has all the functionality I was used to from Feedreader but with greater convenience.

The same is true for Flickr. There is a Flickr button which opens a toolbar for previewing yours and everyone elses Flickr content. It's not everything that Flickr is but it's a great place to start.

Bookmarking : the friendly star button allows me to add the current page to my del.icio.us bookmarks. Sure I'll need to go and tag and share them. But this is overcome with a shortcut.

The other great feature is the search bar. Type in a search and it performs live searching within your favorites and selected toolbar.

If you haven't tried Flock then you should have a look. Especially if you use Flickr, del.icio.us, RSS or blog.

technorati tags:internet, browser, Flickr, del.icio.us, blog, rss