Web Browser Meets Social Network

My newest find while surfing the web: Flock. From Mozilla, it's the first "social web browser" and it's basically integrating social networking into your general web-browsing experience. No, this is not an extension to Firefox, it is an entirely independent web browser. Everything that social networks have enabled you to do before has been streamlined through Flock.

I decided to download Flock and take it for a test run. While it still has a few kinks, it is definitely the browser of the future. If you like Firefox and you're even slightly obsessed with checking your various community, photo, and blog accounts you will love it.


On Flock you can do it all so much easier! Drag and drop your photos to share. Search as you type. Easily build your own news feed. Use the built-in blog editor to make posting easier. These features aren't necessarily that new, but they are definitely improved from other browsers, and they're all available straight from your toolbar. Just take the tour to see some of the innovative tools for yourself.

You'll see a few things you're familiar with in Flock's design as well. It's homepage for instance: a Google-esque search engine powered by Yahoo! An interesting question to consider is will Yahoo! try to integrate some of these ideas into their own site? And, could this put them back on the map in comparison to Google who has far outpaced them in number of hits since its unveiling? I think it all really depends on just how successful Flock turns out to be. With the rise of influence in social networking, I have a feeling it will be more than a passing fad. Once people hear about it, the rest will be history.


While an initial beta version of the browser was released in October of 2005, it had difficulty catching on in the mainstream. When Flock teamed up with Photobucket last year that was when things started happenning. I don't think Flock has reached it's full potential just yet though.

It will be interesting to watch and see how it does, especially since social networking is its largest source for promotion. The more I learn about Flock, the more I relate its strategy to Google. While Flock is attempting to do something different from anyone else, it is totally grasping the buzz and permission marketing concept that Google so successfully implemented. Word of mouth is its sole source of promotion. In addition, Flock's open-forum setup makes it the closest thing to a user-generated browser as it grows and expands off of user feedback. Flock's community members are "Flockstars." They spread the word and invite their friends. Will you be a Flockstar? Will this story end with the same type of success as Google? Only time will tell...