I first came across Flock over at Info Malaya some time ago but it was just recently I really have the passion to give it a try. My first impression when I saw the loading bar during the installation was Flock would be another Netscape browser, which takes ages to load, but it doesn’t take long before it self-propels to prove me wrong. Sorry Firefox, the integration of various web applications seem to prophesy Flock to be a revolutionary web browser that caters the needs of the new generation of social web users. If you are really into social networking, Flock makes it extremely easy for you to use. Let’s see all the distinctive features that make Flock belongs to elite echelon of browsers.
People Sidebar
The sidebar of Flock 1.0 is the heart of social networking integration. There are nine buttons at the top of the collapsible sidebar that make your favourite websites easily accessible. Each of those will help in speeding up tasks such as sending out message, drag and drop pictures or subscribing feeds.
The People button keeps track all your social networking accounts. Currently, it supports Youtube, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. Facebook addicts will definitely fall in love with this feature because it gives users the ability to manage their Facebook from their sidebar such as uploading pictures and handling friend requests.
Photo Uploader which is available at the top right corner of the sidebar is a common tool, not only limited to Facebook but also available to other web applications such as Flickr, Photobucket and blogging editor. With this tool becomes the integral of this browser, it really comes handy to users in managing multiple web 2.o applications.
Favourite site button (3 stars icon), next to the feed icon manages your bookmarks. If you are a big fan of Firefox or Internet Explorer and about to switch to the FLock, worry not about your data. You can transfer all the data associated to your previous browser including the bookmarks and history during the installation.
News Reader
“Feeds Sidebar” is a fully featured news reader based on the sage aggregator and it supports the feeds and feed reading. Basically it has the sidebar which contains your subscriptions and the main window which displays the news articles. There are 5 viewing formats. You may choose to opt to view the news by full articles, excerpts or by headlines only and they can be displayed in single or double column. “Feeds Sidebar” let the users to save interesting posts which will be available later in “Saved Articles” collection and like many normal feed readers, ‘flag’ is an essential feature available in this tool.
The integration really does a wonderful job because while you are surfing, you will be alerted if there is an update in your feeds.
Blog Editor
Currently the blog editor supports WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type, MetaWeblog, LiveJournal, Drupal, TypePad and self hosted blogs. If you choose to configure it for your own self-published blog, Flock walks you through the process.I had tried to write up something on my blog using this editor and I can say it has everything needed except I could not upload my picture to my own server. The picture must be either uploaded to hosting image such Photobucket or worst of all stealing from other websites.
This editor comes with the WYSIWYG editor and the source code editor and I prefer to use both, switching back and forth. While WYSIWYG speeds up the task, the source code editor will act as a complement which gives me a better control over the post I’m writing. You might wonder where the list of categories to choose from for your post. By clicking on the publish button, a small popup will appear and you would be able, by now, to choose at which category will your post reside.
Media Streams Integration
The top bar is dedicated to media streaming which includes Truveo, Youtube, Flickr, Photobucket and Facebook It lets user to browse through the millions of videos and pictures. Wandering in the abundance of them would be a true challenge without some sort of filters. Each of those web applications is associated with its own filter to help users to sort out the media.
Sharing videos and photos is made easier with the option to copy in the websites and share with your friends. Under the share menu, you can send it to you friend's email or blog about it. If you don't want to go directly to video sharing websites, you may prefer to use the mini view to watch the video within a small popup window.
This browser is stunning, and it has excellent features. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Technorati Tags: sage, flickr, youtube, truveo, facebook, twitter, photobucket, flock, web 2.0, browser, internet, video streaming, photo sharing
Nov 4, 2007 at 17:42:48
I guess I will sticking to FireFox, although Flock claims its browser as a social media browser, the relevant addons can be installed in FireFox through the extensions section.
The interface of Flock, which I really like, can be download and used on FireFox as well.
My opinion is that it will be a long long way before Flock can take a huge chuck of users from IE and FF.
Nov 4, 2007 at 20:38:11
Great review of Flock. I have been using Flock for about 2 weeks now. I really like it. I just found the blogging tool yesterday. I am going to try it on my next article.
Nov 4, 2007 at 21:09:47
wow…. blog editor is cool, i really love it……….
Nov 4, 2007 at 21:10:15
Wayne @ A long long way to go but sure it does someday ;) I still use both Firefox & Flock.
Fred @ nice posts about social media stuffs. Subscribed to your blog and keep posting!
Nov 4, 2007 at 21:13:37
nicholas @ I need to leave the blogging editor as it doesn’t have the upload picture function to server. Having said that, it’s still a good editor.
Nov 5, 2007 at 00:24:07
Wow , i am going to try it right now.
Nov 5, 2007 at 11:40:18
huhu…cantik pon menda tuh kat atas header ko…
Nov 5, 2007 at 14:42:48
mekaceh :D
Nov 7, 2007 at 01:43:59
menarik nih.. leh wat review kt bloh heheh..