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

So how will it generate sales?

[powerpuffgirls]

Decrem expects to make money from running Google ads, as well as getting so-called affiliate fees for referring users to commercial sites such as Amazon.com (AMZN ). Moreover, he envisions getting money from other Web services, such as blogging or photo-sharing services, that might pay Flock for sign-ups sent their way from the Flock software.

Is it Opera all over again in terms of its business model?

Or does it sound like a legalized spyware?

What would site owners feel if a browser is competing for Google Ads and referral bonuses with them?

Invalid markup, to boot.

[CyricZ]

It appears that their site fails to validate, at least according to the W3C Markup Validator.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.flock .com/home/

I would have expected the web page of a web browser to at least be standards-compliant. The Mozilla, Opera and Konqueror pages all validate cleanly:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.mozil la.org
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.opera .com
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.konqu eror.org

Re:Invalid markup, to boot.

[babyrat]

I would have expected the web page of a web browser to at least be standards-compliant. The Mozilla, Opera and Konqueror pages all validate cleanly:

Ya think www.microsoft.com/ie would pass????

MPL infringement?

[game kid]

I smell imminent, blatant MPL infringement--unless, they are writing their own code to interpret the xpis (and perhaps ActiveX too, if they want some bizarre sort of extra credit or something).

If they do use Mozilla code, certainly they should have the source code available, as per the MPL, Section 3.6, no? Unless Flock has balls of Fire-proof steel and considers such a license naïve and unconstitutional like SCO or something...