This Tuesday social web browser Flock will release Version 0.9, as they inch towards the
full 1.0. Version 0.9 is currently available to
early adopters as a 'Release Candidate'. I had an in-depth chat with Flock's CEO Shawn
Hardin last week and I have been testing the 0.9 version too. The actual version I have
been running is 0.899.1, but the improvements over v0.7 are no less evident. Flock's
latest upgrade is geared towards increased "discoverability" for users and further
delineates it from conventional browsers. Shawn explained the reasons behind these
changes...
Flock launched their social media browser amid a flurry of hype back in 2005. The innovation for the Flock browser was originally billed as a marriage of social media and Web 2.0 functionality. It initially met with mixed reviews, as Flock fell victim to over-stimulated user expectations and “too much” attention. Version 0.7, released June of 2006, was essentially not a great enough departure from Firefox - and even with its innovative features, many users considered Flock as just a Firefox clone.
The browser's “less than perfect” entry into the market has not daunted the over 1.5 million users who have downloaded it so far. Version 0.9 is really an overhaul of the UI - focused on “discoverability”, or essentially relieving the pain involved in integrating a new browser into a user’'s routine. As Steve O'’Hear said in a great article about Flock on ZDNet, Flock is not simply a passive browser experience, but a “write”-capable platform designed to enhance the social media experience. The list of v0.9 additions and upgrades is too vast to list completely, but Flock has added or upgraded features for: people aspects, the general features, media bar, favorites, feeds, accounts, the Web clipboard, blog editor, search and uploader aspects - all on a broad scale.
Flock is a very elegant and well organized browser. I am as good a “test rat” as there is, having been so anchored to IE over the years, so working with a new browser for some days proved illuminating. The first thing I noticed about Flock was the media bar, so prominently displayed at the top. This bar has superb flexibility and is the heart of the video and image interface. Searching and acting on the various services is a fairly "right in your face" function, as are most of the other inherent functions. Shawn and I talked about the need for reducing the amount of clicks needed to work with applications; this aspect was one of their main goals. From what I can tell, virtually every Flock task can be completed in one or two clicks - and typing is limited.
Media Bar in action
As an example: adding my WordPress blog was a two-click action. Posting straight from the Flock UI is also simple and the resultant postings looked as if they had been created in WP. Indeed every feature I tested proved to be a derivative of Wordpress. Flock has done an excellent job of making the "discovery" experience enjoyable and easy. What is less evident initially is the amount of time and pain saved in performing what Flock treats as simple click functions; where Fx or IE require more clicks. The bottom line is that an old IE user like me learned more advanced features and functions over 3 or 4 days, than I probably know about IE in years of use.
There is not a lot to dislike about Flock. My favorite features tend to be smaller elements, but the most incomparable feature of this browser is its RSS display. Adding feeds is performed in the same "one click" fashion as other elements and the feed sidebar is excellent - but the RSS Reader really sets Flock apart in that full excerpts (illustrated below), single column, headlines and double column formats can be customized.
The media bar and the added functions within it are excellent as well. Scrolling playlists are not new - but simple, searchable, drag and drop versions do not abound and the Flock version is flexible. The current searchable services are Flickr, YouTube, Photobucket and Truveo; and results can also be filtered. The 'view as a mini' function, combined with drag and drop and the mouse-over preview shown in the next screenshot, make this simple and fun to use.
RSS for R/WW configured to "full" article view
I tend to like "the details" or smaller elements of these startups, because developers who pay attention to the little things tend to excel at making the more obvious features too. I liked Flock the moment I noticed that I could change my search engine. You will note that the options bar on the My World page displays several search engines and that I have chosen hakia as the default. Favorites are segregated into local and online categories, and they are also viewable in tree form as the graphic below points out. From mouse-over descriptions of virtually every button, to the picture up there in the corner of my son from my Flickr account, Flock has covered off all the little details.
My World with media bar collapsed
Despite the attention to detail in v0.9, there is currently a limited number of external services supported. Outside of this one negative aspect (and the fact that the tabs remind me too much of Firefox), Flock could be the most impressive browser of them all. In our discussion, Shawn overloaded me with information about upcoming features and improvements. Honestly, this version has far too many features to touch upon, but the partner-friendly business model and version 0.9's integrated search - which shortcuts searches internally to provide faster and more relevant results - are just two of a dozen or more great aspects to this version.
Flock is targeted at social networking users, but if more external services are forthcoming and development continues to differentiate Flock from the others, it will be a compelling product for its target users.
Comments
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flock 0.9 might have an abundance of features, but, at least on my g4 ibook, the new version is so painfully slow it's unusable
Posted by: bleed | July 9, 2007 7:24 AMGive Flock a try. You'll love it! Vast improvement over previous versions!
Posted by: tony | July 9, 2007 8:08 AMI do think that Flock has come along way since I helped get the company going (and helped stir the overhype) and agree that v0.9 is impressive despite the length of time it's taken between releases (part of this is due to Mozilla's lack of improvements in the platform making it hard to act agile from a development perspective, as I lamented in my 50 minute vlog post).
There are two things (maybe three) that I think Flock really needs to nail before it's 1.0 release and I don't know if it'll get there in time:
1. It needs to "get" People in the Browser. That Mozilla Labs produced The Coop extension based on my mockups and nothing like it is in Flock is unacceptable. A social browser *must*, by definition, support People as first order citizens, along with web pages, history, bookmarks and the like. Adding web services to the mix and publishing are two of Flock's great additions, but without People it's a web services browser, not a Social Browser.
2. Support for OpenID and Oauth. Underpinning People, you need support for some kind of identity apparatus -- what better way to reaffirm its commitment to open source and open technologies than to support OpenID and to really innovate on what the UI should be for this protocol! Additionally, a small group of us have gotten together on a token-based authentication protocol for web services and desktop apps that makes use of OpenID and other authentication protocols creating what we're calling Oauth (formerly OpenAuth before AOL took the name). We've essentially extracted FlickrAuth, BBAuth and AuthSub and made it work with all authentication protocols... adding support for this in the browser would be key to unlocking authenticated data hidden in web services.
2.5. Fix composition. Obviously People should be the first priority, but as was pointed out, one of the goals of Flock was to add the Write to the Read/Write web. The current blog editor (as of 0.899.1 has barely changed since I left the company and in my opinion is weak. Take a look at MarsEdit or Ecto for blogging tools that actually work for bloggers -- that's not to say that Flock needs something complicated, but what it does need is something more elegant. The mockups that I did weren't as elegant as I'd like to see, but do speak to a level of polish that, at least on the Mac, cannot be found in Flock's editor. I'd really love to see this tool given the UI attention that the rest of the app seems to have been given.
So that's what I think needs to happen before Flock goes 1.0 (though I really hope it's not another year before their next release). Lots has changed for Flock over the past two years -- and the entire original team is gone. It's going to be interesting to see what the most important priorities are for Flocker Generation 2. Flock 0.9 will be a good downpayment on that vision and I do hope that they can pull off the complete picture in short order.
Posted by: Chris Messina | July 9, 2007 10:10 AMFlock is an amazing browser and community. The interface design is one of the best, if not the best, for offering intuitive usability and discoverability. The drag-and-drop functionality makes updating social site's (blogs, photos, videos) a breeze. My personal favorite feature is the integration of Del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia.com favorites into the search box with real-time updating when typing a keyword/tag. Some of the features in Flock are available for Firefox via extensions. But with Flock, the most popular social features are integrated natively into the browser right out of the box. For the non-tech user, Flock's features will certainly provide a much more social and interactive experience over other browser offerings in the marketplace.
Posted by: webonics | July 9, 2007 11:59 AMDel.icio.us is tied into Flock? How does that interface work versus the most recent plugin for firefox?
I guess I'll have to download flock and find out for myself.
Posted by: Greg J. Smith | July 9, 2007 1:14 PMCan you give me five good reasons why I would want to leave Firefox and use a different browser?
Posted by: HMTKSteve | July 9, 2007 2:33 PMHi Web Greg, Web and Steveo. Thanks for the comments. Web, you pretty much have it down, Flock is promising.
Greg - Yes the big "D" is at Flock in a big way. I wish I had enough space in the article to describe all these aspects. The biggest difference between the two is obviously that FF is a plug in and Flock's version is already integrated. Outside of that the FF version has a good bit less utility in my view. At Flock Del.icio.us can be viewed or utilized from several different sections.
In the sidebar it can be seen or used as either a tree element or straight accessed. On a user's "My World" page it appears as a favorite and it also appears as a favorite via other sidebar actions. I guess it a matter of preference and clicks really. You should check it out and tell us what you think.
Steve,
1. You are a superstar reviewer in your own right - review
2. You are covered up every day - what if it saves clicks?
3. We are all adventurers and you are no exception
4. For the same reason we buy new cars
5. I believe it is worth trying - I never lied to you :O)
The biggest reason you should at least try it is because your razor sharp claws can find any flaws in it and your freedback will make it better.
I can come up with more - let me know. :)
Posted by: Phil Butler | July 9, 2007 3:26 PMExcellent review Phil! With all the buzz around Web 2.0, it is challenging to keep track of the background story behind the startups. I found this piece quite informative. Keep up the great work :)
- Jawad Shuaib
Posted by: Jawad Shuaib | July 10, 2007 11:16 PMfounder, Shuzak.com
I like very much the social browser idea. However, it would be difficult for me to migrate from Firefox to Flock, because I use special plugins with my browser: SEO for firefox, tidy and other such tools, very important in my business. :)
Posted by: Mihaela Lica | July 11, 2007 1:41 AMWow. This browswer looks chock full of features that I'd want to use. Good find.
Can't wait to see when the 1.0 version comes out.
But I do have to agree with the comment above: It's hard to leave FireFox. Still -- sometimes I'm on the web strictly for some time with social news sites -- perhaps Flock is more of a speciality, once in a while, browser.
Posted by: Digidave | July 11, 2007 12:14 PMOn first glance, Flock seems to me a Firefox clone amped up with ‚Äúsocial browsing‚Ä? addons built directly into the browser. The menus are nearly identical, as well as the favorites manager and download dialogs. A Firefox user should feel right at home, with all kinds of convenient new toys to play with. I especially like the drag and drop features that eliminate the need to code html to embed media content. One drawback I noticed is that you can not import Firefox settings after the initial startup. Hopefully that will be fixed with the 1.0 release. Thanks for the review Phil. This is an interesting browser, and I‚Äôm sure I will be playing around with it for awhile to come.
Posted by: subC | July 12, 2007 8:45 AM