Well technically it's not that new because
Flock is based on Mozilla, which is what FireFox is based on. But it seems like Flock is aiming to create a differnet type of web expereince by incorporating the ability to create blog entry within your browser. And thanks to
Jimbo, I could try the early demo of flock. EDIT:
Now you can get a copy too
This so-called "social web browser" is like a new Magic Wand tools for all you blogging wizards (and fairies) out there. It enables you to drag and drop certain text on the web site that you are reading and create a blog post automatically with cited tag and the link to the original blog post, you can also drag and drop Flickr photos as well, and there are some other minor features such as utilization of
del.icio.us and the use of new bookmark concept: tagging (although a little bit old idea)
Now this is where my stubborness gets me. Since i don't use any of the main stream blogging engine (because I want to be bloody unique), this function is pretty much not useful for me at all. So I can't really comment too much on how easy it is.
So here's some random thought on Flock as a browser:
+ Very fast, and by that I mean it's just as fast as Safari. Now that was one of the reason i stopped using Firefox on Mac because Firefox on mac is just HELLA slow. But I do miss a lot of thing that I could do with FireFox that I couldn't with Safari such as instant translation from Simplified Chinese to Traditonal Chinese on the fly, some mouse gesture extension. And this leads to next thought
+ Since it's based on FireFox, supposedly you can use all the Firefox plugin you want, but I tried to install some of the common one I use, and it doesn't work.
+ Seems like every browser wants to include a RSS reader now. So far i haven't been able to get the RSS feed to function correctly, but it's probably just me.
+ The concept of “tagging” isn’t very new. You pretty much see them on all your mp3s, all the Apple applications (iPhoto) or Flickr. Now you see them in Flock too. The tagging system in the bookmark is quite useful if you are like me who is just to lazy to organize my bookmark by folders with different category, you can simply tag the link with multiple category like “design,” “photography,” etc so when you click on the tag, the site with those tags will show up.
+ del.icio.us is one neat feature too for those who doesn’t have any adult web site bookmarked in your browser, and for those who can’t share enough links on their blogs already, and still want to share bookmark on any other web site. And for those of you who doesn’t know what del.icio.us is, this is a tool where you can share your bookmark online (social bookmarks). The bookmark tool will make it easier too.
Pros:
+ very fast on Mac
+ Easy Blogging tools
+ new tagging bookmark system
+ incorporation of del.icio.us for those of you who care
Cons:
+ There really isn't too much cons with Flock right now since it utilize the already popular Mozilla Engine, and also added some small neat features along with it. But if there has to be one, I have to say Flock is too focused on one particular Internet user group, and if you don’t do any of those, this is just like another browser. Stick with Safari, Camino, or Firefox if you like. (However the speed and the new bookmark tagging could be enough to convince you to switch)
*Above comments are based on version 0.4.8.
I can see what Flock is trying to do by making it easier for bloggers to create their blog post. However I don't think the idea is all that revolutional at all. You'll find bloggers praise Flock all over the internet pretty soon while other people (like me) who could careless about blogging. To me if a product is too dependant on other product (in Flock's case, Blogging engine, Flickr) it would be really difficult to survive. And not to forget, making it easier to quote other people's stuff on the internet doesn't really mean it's exciting, you'll probably just see same stuff quoted over and over again because every last bloggers over Internet is using Flock and quoting the same stuff.
If you have seen some buzz word like "social networking," community," "web2.0" you definitely read more than 5 blogs a day, and you know you only see those word on those blogs. This just show how shallow all those bloggers are, everyone wants to talk about it, everyone quoted it, everyone wants to brand their stuff with it, but no one really came up with anything revolutional. Put it simply, it's just a bunch of people who like to write diary wanting to change the world. Too bad, I don't think it's going to happen (Even with Flock in hand)
