Pretty Flocking Good

A few months ago, a colleague of mine sent an email talking about a new browser called Flock. I installed it and after playing a bit, I just didn’t get it. Time went by. Then I started this blog. A couple of days ago, because Flock had a blog editor, I tried again. Suddenly, this browser became so much more important to me in a few ways.

A Social Application

Unlike other browsers, the Flock browser gives the user a two-way interface to the internet. You can push the quill pen icon and start writing (like I did a few minutes ago). You can drag photos from your desktop to the toolbar and they are instantly shared on Flickr. You can drag your Flick images from the film strip toolbar display to your blog page. You can grab snippets of text from web pages that you’re reading and drop them on the temporary storage area Flock calls the “shelf.” From here, you can drop them to your blog page. When you bookmark a page, something Flockers call “starring,” they are saved automatically to Shadows or del.icio.us browser favorites storage sites where others can see them via various search and aggregations. (Yes, you can choose not to share or to make favorites private.) You can quickly subscribe to news feeds.

What this does is bring together all of the pieces of the knowledge internet, where topics can be discussed and shared easily. It lets the once-lurking user say something to the world easily. It moves the internet toward becoming the modern-day version of the tavern of old, where people gather, exchange ideas, and make things happen. That’s the biggest benefit of this application: it helps the user make things happen.

A Web Service Application

This is a beautiful example of an application exploiting Web Services. Many online applications (like Flickr, WordPress, Shadows, etc.) expose themselves with open protocols. This allows other applications to use their exposed features. This is very powerful, because multiple applications can be interwoven in new an exciting ways never dreamed up by their original designers. Flock does a good job at taking a first stab at using this great lever. It makes me imagine dozens of services, all tied together with the Web Service enabled browser.

Another Demonstration of the Open Source Community Pushing Things Forward

What can I say? This application is built on Mozilla/Firefox and uses those great browsers’ technologies in new and exciting ways. Software building on other software building on other software. It’s a sign that we’re growing and computers are providing extensions to our human capabilities that help us improve, that help us solve problems, and that help reach others with common interests.

technorati tags: Flock, Browsers, Web, Technology