Flock_(web_browser)

Flock (web browser)

Flock (web browser)

Discontinued web browser integrating social networking and Web 2.0 features

Flock is a discontinued web browser that specialized in providing social networking and Web 2.0 facilities built into its user interface.[4] Earlier versions of Flock used the Gecko HTML rendering engine by Mozilla. Version 2.6.2, released on January 27, 2011, was the last version based on Mozilla Firefox.[5][6] Starting with version 3, Flock was based on Chromium and so used the WebKit rendering engine.[7][8] Flock was available as a free download, and supported Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and, at one time, Linux as well.

Quick Facts Developer(s), Initial release ...

Support for Flock was discontinued in April 2011.[9][10]

History

Flock was the successor to Round Two, who raised money from Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures, Shasta Ventures and other angel investors. Bart Decrem and Geoffrey Arone co-founded the company.[11] Flock raised $15 million in a fourth round of funding led by Fidelity Ventures on May 22, 2008, for an estimated total of $30 million, according to CNET. The company's previous investors, Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures, and Shasta Ventures, also participated in the round.[12]

In January 2011, Flock Inc. was acquired by Zynga.[13] The browser has been discontinued, with support ending April 26, 2011.[14]

Features

Flock 2.5 integrated social networking and media services including MySpace,[15] Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc.[16] When logging into any of the supported social services, Flock could track updates from friends: profiles, uploaded photos, and more. Flock 2.5 added Twitter Search functionality, multi-casting of status updates to multiple services, and the introduction of instant messaging via Facebook Chat in the browser.

Other features include:

Reception

In December 2007, Flock won the Mashable Open Web Awards for Applications and Widgets[26] and in March 2008, Flock won the South By Southwest[27] Web Award for Community.[28]

CNET gave the Mac OS X version of Flock 1.0 the title of "Best Mac Software of 2007".[29] PC World's Harry McCracken reviewed Flock as his "New Favorite Web Browser".[30]

In February 2008, AOL announced that it would discontinue support for the Netscape browser, and recommended Flock and Firefox as alternative browsers to its userbase of Netscape 9 users.[31] For the Netscape 8 userbase, AOL recommended only the Flock browser to its users.[32] In March 2008, Flock announced that they had seen "nearly 3 million downloads" and a 135% increase in active users in the first two months of 2008. They also announced "more than 70 percent of Flock users making it their default browser of choice".[33]

In May 2008, Flock won the Social Networking category of the Webby Awards.[34][35] Flock was nominated for this award along with Facebook, Bebo and Ning.

When Flock's discontinuation was announced in April 2011, reviewer Joey Sneddon of OMG! Ubuntu! offered the analysis: "Whether this was down to poor implementation design wise (one needs only glance at 'Rockmelt' for an example of a social browser done right) or just general apathy towards having alerts from twitter, flickr, facebook, digg et al. in your face all of the time is moot: Flock has flocked off and for all its innovation it never quite lived up to its own hype."[9]

Awards

Upon exiting beta, Flock won a number of awards:[23]

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Festa, Paul (April 11, 2005). "Start-up wants to improve on Firefox". CNET. Retrieved August 2, 2010.
  2. [2]
    "Flock Global Page". Softpedia. SoftNews. Archived from the original on December 15, 2013. Retrieved December 15, 2013.
  3. [3]
    "Flock (Discontinued) 3.5.3.4641 / 2.6.1". Softpedia. SoftNews. Retrieved December 15, 2013.
  4. [4]
    Flock Browser – Built on Mozilla's Firefox Archived March 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  5. [5]
    "Flock 2.6.2 Release Notes". Flock. Archived from the original on February 22, 2011. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  6. [6]
    "Powered by Mozilla". Flock. Archived from the original on October 30, 2010. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  7. [7]
    Iedtke, Michael (June 16, 2010). "Flock Browser Gets Faster, Friendlier With Upgrade". ABC. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
  8. [8]
    Wayner, Peter (October 19, 2010). "Top 10 specialty Web browsers you may have missed". InfoWorld. p. 2. Retrieved October 28, 2010.
  9. [9]
    Sneddon, Joey (April 2011). "End of the line for Flock social browser". OMG Ubuntu. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
  10. [10]
    Flock Inc (April 15, 2012). "Support for Flock browsers has been discontinued". Archived from the original on April 29, 2011. Retrieved April 10, 2012.
  11. [11]
    Flock Browser - Company Info Archived March 14, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  12. [12]
    "Flock draws $15 million for social browsing". CNET. Archived from the original on November 16, 2011. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
  13. [13]
    Wasserman, Todd (January 7, 2011). "Zynga Buys Social Web Browser Flock". Mashable. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
  14. [14]
    Van Grove, Jennifer (April 12, 2011). "Flock Shutters Social Web Browser". Mashable.
  15. [15]
    Official release announcement on Shawn Hardin's blog Archived October 18, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  16. [16]
    "Activate Services and Unite Your Social Networks in the People Sidebar". User guides. Flock. Archived from the original on October 20, 2008. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  17. [17]
    "Share Pictures, Text, Audio and Video". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  18. [18]
    "View and Share Media through the Media Bar". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  19. [19]
    "Track Feeds". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  20. [20]
    "Activate and Manage Blogs". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  21. [21]
    "Review: Strong, innovative Web browsers emerge". Associated Press. Archived from the original on June 28, 2008. Retrieved June 26, 2008.
  22. [22]
    "Get or Build Add-ons for Flock". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  23. [23]
    "Flock's press".
  24. [24]
    "Flock Named As One of PC World's "100 Best Products of 2008"". Retrieved June 17, 2008.
  25. [25]
    "The 100 Best Products of 2008". PC World. May 26, 2008. Retrieved June 28, 2015.
  26. [26]
    Adam Hirsch 86 (December 21, 2007). "Open Web Awards Winners". Mashable.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  27. [27]
    Web Awards Archived March 23, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  28. [28]
    McCarthy, Caroline (March 11, 2008). "Oh wait! SXSWi had Web Awards, too". cnet.com. Archived from the original on August 9, 2011. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  29. [29]
    Parker, Jason (December 20, 2007). "Best Mac Software of 2007". Download.com. Archived from the original on February 15, 2008. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  30. [30]
    I Have A New Favorite Web Browser: Flock Archived November 8, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  31. [31]
    "Netscape 9 Users: Time to Flock or Firefox". Blog.netscape.com. February 20, 2008. Archived from the original on August 13, 2011. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  32. [32]
    "Netscape 8 Update Forthcoming: You Can Flock Too!". Blog.netscape.com. Archived from the original on July 30, 2011. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  33. [33]
    "Flock Browser Use Growing Dramatically". Reuters.com. Archived from the original on May 3, 2008. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  34. [34]
    "2008 Webby Award Winners". Webbyawards.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  35. [35]
    Flock Wins a Webby Award for Best in Social Networking Archived May 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  36. [36]
    Michaels, Philip. "Eddy Winner: Flock 2.0". Macworld.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
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