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Flock? Okay, but wait a second

Fred Oliveira on October 20, 2005

Flock So Mike just posted the scoop on Techcrunch that Flock will be launching today at 3pm. As a web lover (it’s actually how I make my living too), there’s a couple of things that I am concerned about with the release of a new browser - or if you want to be technical, a branch of an existing browser, Firefox.

Unification plays, for me, a major role in evolution of a product (or group of products) - in fact, I posted about this when this week I talked about Linux desktop efforts. It follows that a branch of a browser that’s just getting the right momentum (Firefox had their 100th million download just a couple of days ago) may not be the best way to get people to actually use any of the two.

Here’s the little flock intro by the team:

We started Flock to build tools that empower people and smooth out some of the more hairy parts of living and working online. As it is, we live and breathe this stuff everyday and wanted better tools to do the things that we love doing online.

Flock integrates the browser experience with social bookmarking and weblog posting. Now, as I’m potentially one of the persons who they’d consider to be in their target audience, I use delicious, flickr and weblog software like wordpress. Integration of tools that use this service into my browser of choice is a good thing, I admit, but why package that as a different browser and not a set of extensions for a browser that can use as many friends and supporters as it can?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like the idea and the team, they’re great guys and really talented developers. But being 100% honest, I’m still not sure I’m changing my browser to have a way to integrate delicious and a blogging tool into my browsing experience. I know some people will, but I’m not sure about numbers. My only question is, how will development efforts for Flock influence development efforts for Firefox?

Apart from that and now that I’m done admiting my scepticism, best of luck with the launch, guys! I definitely want to see what’s coming next.

Update: Bart Decrem, the CEO at Flock, posted his view on the whole Flock / Firefox and closed-source / open-source deal over at his blog. You should read his post if you have questions about how and why Flock’s entering the browser marketing.


Comments on this post

vucabei

I’m surprised to see you argue this point. I mean, it seems to me, the more products released, the more competition, the best products can rise to the top. Let the consumers weed out and choose among the products, and let the market decide which one is best. I think the process of a good product dominating all others happens naturally as a function of the market economy. You are too worried about consumer confusion I think, but it is just a cycle… (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_adopter)

Fred

Part of my work is getting myself in the eyes and mind of an end-user and see things as they would. Thats why I understand the goal of releasing flock, but I’m not sure users will. So consumer confusion worries me, yes ;)

Pete Cashmore

Yeah - I tried out Flock yesterday and I while I thought it was OK, I wouldn’t make the switch from Firefox. It’ll be interesting to see if it gains momentum over time, but right now it doesn’t offer enough advantage over the mighty Fox.

Elroy Jetson

I have to agree. I have been using Flock for a week now. I think it is headed in the right direction, but, since we are being honest, wouldn’t that talent have been better spent working on Firefox?

Flock is no real leap forward. Actually, with the exception of a few minor points, it doesn’t add anything you can’t get with an extension for Firefox.

I thought we were going to see something to enable collboration (see my blog post on this http://www.elroyjetson.org)

Again, being honest, the del.icio.us extension for Firefox actually works better.

What Flock has done is integrate this technology.

Like I said, I like the direction, but unless they do something you can do in Firefox (ie collaboration) then it will just be a small niche player in a crowded market.

Jake Lockley

Maybe I’m just confused, but isn’t the whole point of Web 2.0 is the browser is not the platform but the internet is? Doesn’t this kind of defeat the point? Isn’t the web supposed to be about enabling this kind of functionality dynamically as part of a site/destination/service rather than the browser?

As far as I can tell flock is saying, “Hey, we took this web services and microformats and put them in the browser instead of having people put them on sites you visit. Sounds like they built walls instead of tearing them down. Either way it’s all irrelevant unless they have a business model that works. There is no such thing as it relates to the browser business. Browsers are free and if they don’t meet your needs they can be re-created easily with custom functionality using mozilla code or simpler methods such as hta files for people who appreciate MS tech (search for mybrowse.hta).

Greg Yardley’s Internet Blog » How to top out del.icio.us/popular

[...] In other Flock news, WeBreakStuff echoes some of my earlier concerns about the project. I’ll be watching this discussion carefully as it develops. But there’s no denying that this small, private company has been innovating much faster than the Mozilla Foundation over the last few months. The product’s getting pretty slick. flock, del.icio.us Posted by Greg Yardley @ 12:26 am [...]

Sean O'Hagan

I love new web products and I will use them if their effect on my web experience is minimal. I usually frown on having to install a toolbar, or create a bookmarklet (although I did for del.icio.us). Having to install a whole new browser is even more disruptive, and I’m not sure that herding a few collaborative web technologies in one place is going to convince me to make the switch. New technologies should augment my user experience by extending my current set of tools, not replacing them. If I had to buy a new house each time I bought a piece of furniture, I think I’d become fairly annoyed. I might switch to a new browser if its new features were less connected to the tech-companies-du-jour, and more integrated, generic, and cross-utility. I’m not sure I know exactly what that means, but here’s a simple example that may elucidate it for both you and I. People are writing and publishing from their PCs a lot these days (emails, blogs, etc.) So my browser should have incredible composition and editing features. It should render HTML textareas (and perhaps even simple text input fields) in wonderful new ways. It should be able to check spelling, grammar, and translate. If I want to quote a blogpost or article, I should be able to this in-line. That is, load the quoted page directly into the textarea using a URL or tag, and highlight the desired text. If I want to insert some media, I should also be able to this in-line. Find a group of photos by typing a tag name, and select one or more for inclusion. These are just a few ideas for improving browsers by focusing on just one HTML tag (textarea). However, these kinds of improvements don’t really merit a new browser; they should be incorporated into existing browsers. You may not agree that they’re very good, but they are general kinds of improvements, not connections to specific services. Websites and companies come and go like the wind, and to completely integrate their services into another product is a dangerous venture indeed.

the perpetual beta » Flocked and enjoying it

[...] As far as the Flock vs Firefox debate at webreakstuff goes I am all for the influence this will have on Firefox developers. Firefox is incredible and  the extensions I have started using recently (del.ic.ious, Tabbrowser Preferences, StumbleUpon, Web Developer) to name a few  have changed my browsing experience significantly. I will switch back and forth to see which  fits better, its gonna be a hard sell for flock but they have definately come out swingin. [...]

Giri’s musings » Kudos to Flock!

[...] In the midst of all this some people stiil question how will development efforts for Flock influence development efforts for Firefox. See here for more details. [...]

Read/Write Web

Will mainstream people flock to Flock?

By now most of you know that Flock, a trendy new Mozilla-based “social web browser”, has gone live. Because it’s said to be a quintessential Web 2.0 application, I feel duty-bound to try it out. So I’ve downloaded it and…

shaunandrews.com » Flock: A new web browser has been released

[...] As I was writing this I glanced over at my news reader and saw that WeBreakStuff (which by the way is one of the best blogs on the web) was discussing this exact same point, so go on and check it out. Posted 10 minutes ago - Post a Comment - Trackback [...]

Mike

After running Flock I must say I’m a bit dissapointed. I love the fact that they’re integrating things like Del.icio.us tags and blogging tools into the browser, but it just doesn’t seem to be enough of a step forward. Its already been said here, but I dont see why this needs to be its own new browser… and not an extension pack for Firefox.

If you’re going to release a new product like this, at least give the end user some new amazing things they hadn’t already thought of or that doesn’t already exist. Play leap frog, and clear the competition. Otherwise you’re just another easily forgotten player in the market.

Fortino

Can we all exhale and say “uninstall” together? I mean after all the hype, this is all we have to look forward to? This is far from being “disruptive”

One thing no one has mentioned is that when Firefox rolls out these features or some developer rolls out a packaged Extension kit for Firefox doing the exact same thing, Flock is dead at that instant.

Needless to say, i’ll ask my normal question. What’s the business model here?

LibraryCrunch

Working Towards a Definition of Library 2.0

Moving Towards Web 2.0  Yesterday’s public release of Flock has created some reluctant questioning among proponents of Web 2.0, with the best comments coming from WeBreakStuff.  For anyone who may not know, Flock is a new browser &ndas…

sodamncool.com » Blog Archive » Flock

[...] TechCrunch WeBreakStuff ZDNet [...]

chilly

You nailed this on the head … they should be making their ideas into FF extensions not a new browser.

Unfortunately no “dream of riches” making extensions.

I can’t wait for some good WP and flickr extensions at FF in the next little while.

Michael Casey

When was the last time you changed your browser? I switched to Firefox about twelve months ago and have been with them ever since, leaving IE and Opera behind. However, I have since added many extensions to my Firefox browser, customizing it to a level I find usable and efficient. No matter how good Flock may be, it must be able to not only beat my bionic Firefox but it must offer sufficient rewards over and above what I already have – there must be a compelling reason to change the browser itself.

Products offering incremental improvements in technology — like Flock– can no longer ask the user to make such fundamental changes. As much as I hate to say it, Flock’s approach is to take Web 2.0 technologies and attempt to push them on the community in a manner reminiscent of Web 1.0.

Mike

Yep. I’m in total agreement with the person who mentioned someone else picking up these extensions.

I realize that most of the people reading this site are probably die hard Firefox users… but gee, whats to stop Microsoft from adding these features to IE 7? Or as mentioned, what happens when Firefox is released with all of these items included?

It just doesn’t seem like the business plan was well thought out here. I like the look of the browser, and it runs pretty well… but uh yeah.

Chris Messina

Hi Frederico,

Thanks for the review. I appreciate your skepticism — as it’s well warranted given that Flock is a mere 3 months old. We wanted to get our code out there ASAP to give developers a chance to see what we’re doing and get them involved sooner than later. After all, the best ideas going into Flock will come from people who want to use Flock, not just from us (though we’re building Flock in many ways because current offerings are so disjoint and inefficient).

I would recommend that your readers take a look at Bart’s blog. He has two posts of interest:

* Flock, Firefox and open source
* Creating sustainable value

These explain both Flock’s business model and reason for not simply creating a bunch of extensions. Give’em a read and then drop me a note if you still have questions… chris [at] flock.com.

Bill Soistmann

I couldn’t agree more. I love the idea of integrating these services into my browser. I have buttons on my browser for auto posting to all my blogs, etc. I even built a button that posts to del.icio.us and my link blog at the same time. I love the idea, BUT …

this is the wrong way to go.

Wholesome Goodness

Flock Developer Preview

I’ve spent a decent chunk of this weekend playing with Flock, the new social browser that’s out in developer preview

metavalent

Jake Lockley said it all, “either way it’s all irrelevant unless they have a business model that works.” Bart is super smart and he knows better. Flock must be either a personal toy or there is something he’s hiding up his sleeve. If I had time, I could write a Firefox theme and extension pack that does exactly what Flock does right now.

henri

totally agree with your post.

cory

I’ve now used it for about a week. Honestly, I see no reason to keep on using it.

Flock will Flop. It’s too bad.

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