What the Flock!?!
I finally got my invitation to Flock, and I couldn’t be happier.
What is Flock? It’s a new web browser built from Firefox. For the most part, it is very similar to Firefox — it still uses all its extensions, still has the nice ‘Find in page’ function — but it’s also a whole lot more. Flock could be considered the first ‘Web 2.0′ browser. This means that it brings you to the web community in a way no other browser has before.
From the start, Flock was designed to be different. The biggest change for me is its bookmarking system. Instead of keeping all your bookmarks to yourself, it uses online social bookmarks. By default, your bookmarks sychronize with your del.icio.us bookmarks. But it will support any online bookmarking site. This also means full support for tags. When making a bookmark (called ’starring’ and item), Flock brings up a dialog to enter tags and description, and sends it directly back to del.icio.us. Bookmarking into del.icio.us couldn’t be easier.
Flock also has full integration with Flickr. There is an option to open a ‘topbar’ that will display any Flickr account you choose. Adding photos is as simple as drag and drop. As if I needed another reason to buy a digital camera….
Flock has blogging support built in as well. To add a post to any blog of your choosing, simply choose the blog editor, or switch the topbar to blog mode.
There are still many, many features to Flock that I have yet to discover. Even though it is a developer preview, it is showing huge promise. One of the things I would like to see in the future is the ability to view as many different del.icio.us accounts as you want, or whatever del.icio.us tags you want.
You can get on their beta list by visiting www.flock.com. I encourage everyone to check it out.