Last week, I was alerted via Twitter to Flock, the new Firefox-based web browser designed with social media enthusiasts in mind. I have to say I am very impressed with all that Flock attempts to do. (post continues after the picture)
It aggregates information from your big social media accounts and displays it in various ways (primarily through a very dynamic and interactive sidebar). But unlike many social aggregators, Flock offers the ability to publish to most of these sites from its browser interface, as opposed to visiting various websites or publishing clients.
My favorite feature is the Web Clipboard. You can literally drag and drop the tab of a site or image you want to remember later over to the clipboard. You can then keep those clips organized by folder. For example, I have a folder to keep social media news I want to reference for this site later.
Another fantastic feature is blog publishing. If you think ScribeFire is easy, then you'll love the built-in blog publisher that comes with Flock. It's really like composing an email, and you can set it up to work with multiple blogs. You can use images from your web clipboard or your media bar (where you can grab Flickr and Picasa files). It truly redefines easy.
However, I haven't become a full-time Flock convert yet. The site is a bit slow, which might be due to some of the plugins I needed to install, but I need the StumbleUpon toolbar, for example, if I'm going to keep up with my social media activities. The slowness comes when I try to type an email. Also, Twitter isn't displayed in real time, so I reverted back to receiving updates through Google Talk.
The Facebook updates only include the "What are you doing right now?" feature, which you're probably getting on Twitter anyway. It would be more useful to have notifications and inbox alerts.
And I couldn't give up Google Reader for the RSS reader in Flock. Google Reader is super-easy to skim. For some reason, Flock marks posts as read before I even read them, and if you want to read full feed, it makes all the posts full - not just the one you've selected.
My last criticism involves the design. The tabs and toolbars look bulky, giving the impression that you're viewing a smaller window than in Firefox, when in reality, it just takes up the same amount of space at the top. I was already losing real space to the sidebar (which is collapsible), so the appearance of losing more was a bit uncomfortable - even if it does have a 2.0 look. Perhaps the development of themes could help with this.
Still, I think Flock is off to a great start. With a few improvements, I could absolutely see myself switching over to Flock full time. I'm keeping my eye on it, and so should you.
Have you tried Flock? What do you think?
