Social media and networking-oriented web browser Flock has become somewhat schizophrenic today. The official website’s front page features the stable, Firefox-based version, but the new beta has a completely different underlying browser: Chromium, the open source web browser that powers Google Chrome.
Is this dichotomy a sign that Flock simply doesn’t know where to go next? Perhaps. Touted as “the social browser,” Flock is basically another web browser — previously Firefox, now Google Chrome — with a bunch of social networking features on top. When I reviewed Flock 2.5 approximately one year ago, it was aimed at social networking enthusiasts, trying to stuff every possible feature from Twitter and Facebook into the browser.
Out with the Old, in with the New Features
Compared to version 2.5, the new Flock beta is completely different. Gone are the (overly?) complex menus, Facebook chat, and the all-encompassing My World view. The new, Chromium-based Flock focuses on speed and simplicity, and it consists of little-changed Chrome with a lifestream sidebar, which brings you a stream of activity from your favorite social networks. Fortunately, it also touts a number of tiny but useful features which, overall, make Flock worth a try.
You can choose which networks or groups of friends (you can manage those from a special menu called Groups) you want to see in the sidebar. You can also filter the sidebar for various types of activities, and you can post updates right there, from the sidebar. You can share web pages on social networks by clicking the icon directly in front of the address bar. And once you start typing an address or a search phrase into the address bar, a new option called “What your friends are saying” will pop out, enabling you to search for that term across your friend network.
What’s It Good For?
It takes a minute to set up, and it works out of the box, which is great. However, this simplicity has a flip side: the entire Flock project now boils down to a very good plug-in for Chrome. And if you’re used to an advanced social networking app such as Tweetdeck, Flock’s offering cannot compare in terms of features.
This means that Flock might have a hard time finding an audience: advanced users will find it too simple, and others will probably won’t care about the extra features enough to switch to a new browser. Furthermore, many users (me included) are used to having both Facebook and Twitter open in the browser at all times, which makes Flock a lot less useful. Although this beta shows promise, Flock offers a unique set of features that will probably hit the mark with only a small subset of users, which means that Flock will probably stay what it was since its introduction in 2007: a niche browser.
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