Flock, the New Browser on the Block

^tamago^ writes to tell us BusinessWeek Online is reporting that a new browser is stepping into the arena. This new competitor, Flock, hopes to change the face of web browsing by turning their's into the swiss army knife of browsers. From the article: "Flock's browser is built specifically for a new, emerging generation of Web users, one that isn't satisfied passively browsing media online. Flock hopes to turn the browser into a dashboard for collaborating, blogging, sharing photos, reveling in a raft of other group activities that have recently caught fire online"

Comments

more competition should be a good thing, I hope

[yagu]

First most obvious question to me is, will it run on Linux? No mention in the article, and their web site is coy (and a little annoying in its design). It does mention "cross platform tastiness", and "written in java", so I'm hoping.

That said, my biggest worry is browser extensions that start relying on non-standard implementation, i.e., they begin to have affinity for things not-html, not-javascript, things not-css. I know the browser universe is a hodge-podge of standards already, I just would hate to see yet another trailblazer that ends up to be some extension of some proprietary idea.

Anyway, to the new browser and its team, welcome to our flock. Best of luck.

No Invite

[AKAImBatman]

Lots of wild promises, requires an invite, they can't develop a web page worth a crud, and their "extentions" page screams "FireFox". Me thinks that this isn't as ground breaking as their PR department will have you believe. We'll see, though.

Re:No Invite

[JonTurner]

Look on the bright side. Three years ago, investors would have been throwing money their way without a pause. Now all they get is \. ridicule and suspicious glares. Perhaps the right balance is somewhere between the two extremes. Deliver a little product, show us something, and then we'll decide. Right now it looks like "Too little, too soon."

I guess it's true, as they say in the comedy business "timing is everything."

Yuck

[MightyMartian]

Well, all I can say is that if the web site is any indicator of the design talents of its creators, I don't hold much hope for the "swiss army knife" of browsers.

Re:Yuck

[Iriel]

If my hunch is correct, then the 'designers' are going for some ill conceived sort of mystique to intrigue people into checking out what it is. Personally, I think this tactic wouldn't be so bad except here's a few problems I have with their implementation:

  - The type is too big for any sort of mysterious appeal. If they want people to become interested by being vauge, then the text HAS to be smaller and not so pretentious.

  - Even with the plot to intrigue the user, one has to give away more information than they already don't to at least let you know "wtf". For example, when rogaine first aired commercials in the US, it advertised itself as 'rogaine with monoxodil' as some product to turn your life around, but instead of people asking where to sign up, everyone called to ask 'what the fuck is it?' and ended up being more annoyed than anything else.

  - Lastly, people hate the idea of giving away their digital identity (email) just to test a browser. Hint to the creators: You're not Apple, and as such, you are not going to get everyone to sign up for an invite to feel special in your exclusive club despite secrets handshakes and a password. Give the beta out there with a disclaimer, and an open invitation to test and give feedback instead of trying to be some underground organization, and learn to use colors better ^_^

Great!

[Moth7]

A link to a story about a press release for a private beta. Stuff that matters? Not really. Wake me up when the browser is publically available.

I won't flock to it...

[achacha]

Mozilaa doesn't want to sell me anything and it's a great browser and has a huge head start on these guys... I'll pass thank you. This sounds to me like an idea that the clueless were buying into about 8 years ago.

Slashdot: The newest shill on the block!

[RexRhino]

That's right... News for Nerds, and Stuff that matters, and now the coolest place to get corporate press releases and sponsered product reviews!

Plain English for Aunt Gert

[HisMother]

From the site blog:

People I know seem not really to know what I do for a living. They know it has to do with computers, and most of them know I'm working on software, and many know that I'm doing something with browser software. In a nutshell, here's what my company does: Flock hopes to turn the browser into a dashboard for collaborating

Sigh. Yep. Tell them that. It's "a dashboard for collaborating". That'll convince those non-computer-savvy neighbors! Let's see what Aunt Gert thinks:

A dashboard is that place in the car where I keep my plastic Virgin Mary. There's also some dial thingies I occasionally look at, although half of them I'm not sure what they do. And "collaborating", I don't even know what that means, although it sounds a little illegal.

Why do geeks simply never say "It's a way to work together with your friends over the Web!" Why do we have to use nonsense words like "dashboard" and "collaboration" when there are perfectly lovely plain English substitutes?

Re:Invalid markup, to boot.

[HorsePunchKid]

The only inconvenience was having to read CyricZ's worthless post. I'll take a page (like yours) with mildly broken but very legible, maintainable markup over a perfectly valid page with hideous markup anyday. I'll give you one guess which kind has been more common in my experience... ;)

Good luck with your work, and don't let the Slashdot trolls get you down!