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Software The Internet

Flock, the New Browser on the Block 380

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the too-many-choices dept.
^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"
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Flock, the New Browser on the Block More

Flock, the New Browser on the Block

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  • So how will it generate sales? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by powerpuffgirls ( 758362 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:05PM (#13725026)
    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 [slashdot.org] in terms of its business model?

    Or does it sound like a legalized spyware [slashdot.org]?

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

    • Yuck (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:07PM (#13725040) Journal
      Well, all I can say is that if the web site [flock.com] 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 (Score:5, Funny)

        by aichpvee ( 631243 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:17PM (#13725142) Journal
        SPOILER: flock.com kills eyes!

      • Invalid markup, to boot. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:17PM (#13725148)
        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/ [w3.org]

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

        • Re:Invalid markup, to boot. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by babyrat ( 314371 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @06:25PM (#13725633)
          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????
          • No [w3.org]

            • Results using the HTML Validator Firefox extension (Score:5, Informative)

              by carlmenezes ( 204187 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @09:06PM (#13726577) Homepage
              HTML Validation Result
              ----------------------
              http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx [microsoft.com]

              line 2 column 1 - Warning: missing declaration
              line 8 column 356 - Warning: ' is not approved by W3C
              line 10 column 2403 - Warning: missing before

              line 10 column 2435 - Warning: inserting implicit
              line 10 column 2547 - Warning: discarding unexpected
              line 12 column 46 - Error: is not recognized!
              line 12 column 46 - Warning: discarding unexpected
              line 14 column 980 - Warning: discarding unexpected
              line 24 column 6844 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 6997 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 7004 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 7166 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 7173 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 7423 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 7574 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 7581 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 7729 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 7736 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 24 column 8210 - Warning: is not approved by W3C
              line 6 column 115 - Warning: inserting "type" attribute
              line 8 column 381 - Warning: inserting "type" attribute
              line 8 column 449 - Warning: inserting "type" attribute
              line 10 column 58 - Warning: proprietary attribute "topmargin"
              line 10 column 58 - Warning: proprietary attribute "leftmargin"
              line 10 column 58 - Warning: proprietary attribute "marginwidth"
              line 10 column 58 - Warning: proprietary attribute "marginheight"
              line 10 column 289 - Warning: proprietary attribute "height"
              line 10 column 938 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 938 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 1230 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 1230 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 1423 - Warning: proprietary attribute "height"
              line 10 column 1570 - Warning: attribute "bgcolor" had invalid value "FFFFFF" and has been replaced
              line 10 column 1612 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 1612 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 2554 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 2554 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 3339 - Warning: proprietary attribute "height"
              line 10 column 3460 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 3460 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 3761 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 3761 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 4066 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 4066 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 4363 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 4363 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 4672 - Warning:

              proprietary attribute "url"
              line 10 column 4818 - Warning:

              proprietary attribute "menu"
              line 10 column 5121 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 5121 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 5258 - Warning:

              proprietary attribute "menu"
              line 10 column 5561 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 5561 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 5706 - Warning:

              proprietary attribute "menu"
              line 10 column 6009 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 6009 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 6144 - Warning:

              proprietary attribute "menu"
              line 10 column 6447 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 column 6447 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkid"
              line 10 column 6578 - Warning:

              proprietary attribute "menu"
              line 10 column 6881 - Warning: proprietary attribute "linkarea"
              line 10 c

      • Re:Yuck (Score:3, Funny)

        by LennyDotCom ( 26658 )
        Well, all I can say is that if the web site is any indicator of the design talents of its creators

        I accually like the site design. It's a nice change of pace from most PR websites that try to be so creative you caqn't find any useful info or are so full of flash that you can't stand the waite or figureout how to find the info. Thier site loads fast and you can find what you a looking for very easy.
      • All text, no graphics... It's alkmost like they knew they'd get slashdotted... Bookmark the site and check again next week.

      • Re:Yuck (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        No kidding. God, we can't /. this thing fast enough. Somebody post this on Fark too.

      • Re:Yuck (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Iriel ( 810009 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:31PM (#13725243) Homepage
        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 ^_^

      • Re:Yuck (Score:2)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )
        Yeah, one look at that web site is enough to convince me that this is another amateur effort, not worth my time. I wonder how they managed to get Business Week to give them a blurb?
      • I'm not sure I agree. The directions for subscribing "root@localhost.localdomain" to their mailing list a few times were clear enough.
    • OK, for them to sell traffic they first have to get users. How do they plan on doing this? They sell it as being this great thing that will make browsing a more "social" experience and then they're going to make web sites pay to be a part of it? Count me out.

    • Article summary (Score:5, Funny)

      by joe_bruin ( 266648 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:24PM (#13725197) Homepage Journal
      FLOCK(2)            Linux Programmer's Manual            FLOCK(2)

      NAME
             flock - apply or remove an advisory lock on an open file
      SYNOPSIS
             #include <sys/file.h>
             int flock(int fd, int operation)
      DESCRIPTION
             Apply  or  remove  an  advisory lock on an open file.  The
             file is specified  by  fd.   Valid  operations  are  given
             below:
                    LOCK_SH   Shared  lock.   More than one process may
                              hold a shared lock for a given file at  a
                              given time.

                    LOCK_EX   Exclusive  lock.   Only  one  process may
                              hold an exclusive lock for a  given  file
                              at a given time.

                    LOCK_UN   Unlock.

                    LOCK_NB   Don't  block when locking.  May be speci&#173;
                              fied (by or'ing) along with  one  of  the
                              other operations.

             A  single file may not simultaneously have both shared and
             exclusive locks.

             A file is locked (i.e., the inode), not the file  descrip&#173;
             tor.   So,  dup(2)  and  fork(2)  do  not  create multiple
             instances of a lock.

      RETURN VALUE
             On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1  is  returned,
             and errno is set appropriately.
      ERRORS
             EWOULDBLOCK
                    The  file  is  locked  and  the  LOCK_NB  flag  was
                    selected.
      CONFORMING TO
             4.4BSD (the flock(2) call first appeared in 4.2BSD).
      NOTES
             flock(2) does not  lock  files  over  NFS.   Use  fcntl(2)
             instead:  that  does  work  over NFS, given a sufficiently
             recent version of Linux and a server which supports  lock&#173;
             ing.

             flock(2)  and fcntl(2) locks have different semantics with
             respect to forked processes and dup(2).
      SEE ALSO
             open(2), close(2), dup(2), execve(2),  fcntl(2),  fork(2),
             lockf(3)

             There    are   also   locks.txt   and   mandatory.txt   in
             /usr/src/linux/Documentation.

      Linux                       1998-12-11                   FLOCK(2)

      • Re:Article summary (Score:5, Funny)

        by game kid ( 805301 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:54PM (#13725429) Homepage

        I tried to install this newfangled Flock on Linux, but...

        [root@localhost] # make install
        make: *waves index finger*
        i KNOW you didn't try to overwrite the REAL flock
        with that browser and shit.
        See >man flock< and burn in hell.
        *throws root's clothes out window*
        Stop.
        [root@localhost] #

        My Linux seems a bit protective of its territory nowadays...

    • Actually, it sounds like Opera's old revenue model. And while most site owners didn't mind (or weren't even aware of it), there were indeed a few who objected [opera.com] to that model on exactly those grounds (competing Google ads) and blocked access from Opera users. At least some of them had the sense to stop blocking it after they dropped the ads.
  • Because the text on that page is GIGANTIC.

  • First most obvious question to me is, will it run on Linux? No mention in the article, and their web site [flock.com] 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.

    • Well, if it's written in Java, chances are that its extensions are too.

      However, I have two problems with having a browser written in java:
      1) It won't run on my 500Mhz Dell without making the internet feel like I'm slogging through stiff pudding. (No, Firefox doesn't; I'm running a highly tweaked Linux 2.6/Debian)
      2) I don't want a JVM running every damn time I want to check my gMail.
      3) Can you imagine a JVM interpreting javascript?? We're talking slow.

      Here's a hint, guys:
      Discover the beauty of gcc+(wxWindow

    • Re:more competition should be a good thing, I hope (Score:5, Informative)

      by foolswisdom ( 920654 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @10:10PM (#13726892) Homepage

      Yes, Flock is being developed on and for MSWin, MacOS, and Linux. A slight majority of the developers do their work primarily on Linux. It is not "written in java". I think you have us confused with a SourceForge project. The Flock browser is directly based on Firefox.

      Playing nice with other people and technologies is very important to us!

  • No Invite (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:06PM (#13725035) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • A little thin on details. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JonTurner ( 178845 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:06PM (#13725037) Journal
    Looks more like a phishing exercise:

    Home About Download Extensions Flock has landed.We're introducing the world's most innovative social browsing experience. We call it the two-way web.
    Over the next few weeks, we'll be seeding invites to a few lucky folks. Sign up to find out when invites are available:
    Thanks for your interest!
    Email: And no, we won't spam you, sell your address or do anything else but use this info to let you know when invites are available. We hate spam just as much as you!
    Oh and hey, wanna join the flock? We're hiring! So guess what? Send us your resume!
  • i hear it has "push" technology

  • I say... (Score:2, Funny)

    by rock217 ( 802738 )
    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

    feck flock

  • This is great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by anandamide ( 86527 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:07PM (#13725049)
    Instead of telling someone to visit a website, I can tell them to "Flock This!"
  • ... Flock off!!

  • And I ran... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:10PM (#13725072)
    I ran so far away.

  • Great! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Moth7 ( 699815 ) <<mike.brownbill> <at> <gmail.com>> on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:10PM (#13725075) Journal
    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.

  • Finally! (Score:4, Funny)

    by JohnPerkins ( 243021 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:10PM (#13725076) Homepage
    A browser that embraces bloat!

  • I wonder what MBA thought this one up. (Score:5, Funny)

    by mumblestheclown ( 569987 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:10PM (#13725078)
    I what proactive MBA envisioned the synergies that would allow flock to become a knowledge portal center of excellence for podcasting core competencies of leveraging mindshare and paradigm shifts to achieve superlinear ROI.

  • Covering the bases (Score:5, Funny)

    by saddino ( 183491 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:11PM (#13725081)
    Expect Flock to crash and, from time to time, lose all your data.

    OK, so apparently it's at least as stable as IE.

  • umm, entirely new idea of thinking (Score:5, Funny)

    by skeletor935 ( 790212 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:12PM (#13725088) Journal
    Flock also keeps a history of every Web page a user visits, so they can be found easily later.

    I've seen this feature before, but I can't recall where...

  • Throwing everything but the kitchen sink into your browser is always a good strategy. I mean, look at how well it worked with Netscape 4!

  • You keep changin' when you oughta be a samin' (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tehshen ( 794722 ) <tehshen@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:13PM (#13725106)
    The most innovative thing about Flock is that it's trying to do away with the notion of "browsing." ... Essentially, Flock's software is intended to serve less as a window into static Web content than as a customizable conduit for participatory Web services, from Flickr to del.icio.us to the collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

    Are they trying to turn browsing into browsing here? I think they may have overdone the alliteration, but I don't really understand what they're getting at. 'Browsing' the Internet is probably the best term here, even if it's not static content that is being browsed.

    Besides, products that try to change or turn away the norm tend to not get very far - see Opera vs. Firefox and IE, or (more recently) disposable DVDs vs. normal ones.

    I don't think this is going to get very far at all, even with the big limelight given to it by Slashdot here.

  • Going for broke on presentation? Literally? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zevon 2000 ( 593515 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:14PM (#13725111)
    It looks like it won't be doing anything in terms of functionality that a dedicated FireFox user couldn't get via extensions. That said, it doesn't look like it intends to compete on functionality. The name, page layout, and co-opting of GMail's invite viral marketing all make clear that they're going to go for broke on the presentation and marketing. Hey, it worked for the iPod--there are plenty of mp3 players out there with greater functionality, but people like how the iPod looks and will seek it out.

    That said, people will pay through the nose for an mp3 player. Between M$'s bundling and the open-source movement, how exactly does a start-up web browser plan to make money? Honestly, if there's a niche in the market I would think it would be for ultra-secure browsers, not for flashy hip browsers.
  • When people are starting to be concerned about the security of their browsers doesn't a browser with a lot of options that have a default of on seem like a bad idea? Especially when they may or may not be used. (many people still don't fully use tabbing when given the option)

    Firefox's extentions seem like the smart way to go all around.

  • I won't flock to it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by achacha ( 139424 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:16PM (#13725132) Homepage
    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.
  • 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.

    And then you can open up the "blogging widget", the "photo sharing widget", the "FlogTunes widget"...

    A dashboard, huh? Interesting...It'll be like the digital hub of 2005.
  • Since this is probably a GPL-derivative, I'd like the first to get an "invite" to stop all the "inviting" and simply post the source somewhere. Thx!

  • Indiana Jones and the Portal of Doom (Score:3, Insightful)

    by decipher_saint ( 72686 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:19PM (#13725161)
    To me it seems like a browser with a built in portal. What happens if your blog violates the terms of service? No more surfing for you?

    Personally, I'd rather have seperate tools than one big web-a-majig anyway.

  • Flock will be Open Source (Score:4, Informative)

    by burtonator ( 70115 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:20PM (#13725170)
    ... also... did you know that Flock will be Open Source [feedblog.org] ?

    Kevin

  • AOL (Score:2)

    by 3770 ( 560838 )
    I thought an application like that already existed. Called AOL.

  • Slashdot: The newest shill on the block! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RexRhino ( 769423 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:22PM (#13725183)
    That's right... News for Nerds, and Stuff that matters, and now the coolest place to get corporate press releases and sponsered product reviews!
  • Ok, so am I the only one who tried to sign up for a download? No, of course I didn't use my *real* email address. No one's that dumb (my apologies if you have suddenly become a member of the set of dumb people). I guess my "exclusive invite code" of "giveittomenow" just *happened* to be a valid code (I'm such a l33t h4x0r, eh?).

    But then, shock of all horrors, it's the most defaultiest rails login app I've ever seen in production! Seems to me they could at least have changed some colors or added a logo (
  • you can read more, and take a look at a (very small) screenshot, here:
    http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/08/26/flock-social- browsing-is-cool/

  • The Web Browser of the Future is not a Web Browser (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LionKimbro ( 200000 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:24PM (#13725200) Homepage
    I am actually sympathetic [communitywiki.org] to the basic idea here: New platform.

    I'm newly skeptical of the approach of endlessly creating side-systems [communitywiki.org] on the web browser.

    There are amazing things that are possible [communitywiki.org] when you make a new platform for integrating ideas.

    For example, we can envision a world where you can watch people writing blog posts as they write them. We can imagine working on documents together with others in real-time. [0x539.de] We can imagine social networks, [foaf-project.org] we can imagine shared web browsing. We can imagine going to a web page, and seeing other people who happen to be browsing the web page at the same time as well. We can imagine looking at them, seeing what their affiliations are; There are all these things. We have seen voice communication. [skype.com] Within 10 years, good voice synthesis will be coupled, and we'll be able to look [secondlife.com] and sound like anybody.

    Now, what we haven't seen, even in our imaginations, is all this stuff working together. Integrated into one platform.

    Doing this stuff piece-meal, a little bit at a time, on the edge of the network, isn't going to work. It's just not. It'd take forever. Building new standards into the existing network just takes forever. There is no design team. Nadah. Nothing.

    Where we see the cool stuff happening, really, is in these large behemeouth new platform.

    Now, sure, we can get some milage out of AJAX. [wikipedia.org] We can do sophisticated things with that.

    But are we really going to make a 3D world with live document editing, voice & synthesis, presence, infinite versioning on everything, avatars, the whole thing, yadda yadda yadda, using just AJAX? Within 10-15 years? Hell no! It takes at least at least 5 years to make a new specification pretty much standard amongst users. Even RSS aggregators have only 10% penetration amongst blog readers.

    What does this mean? It means that a new platform is in the works. Whether you know it or not, a new platform is in the works. Which of the new upstarts is going to be it, remains to be seen.

    Sure, sure, sure-- there will be gateways between the world of Vanilla HTML + AJAX into these new worlds.

    At some point, you can make a computer render pictures of the new world, and ship them off in AJAX. You can even play Lemmings in the browser now. (Well, you could have... [xs4all.nl]) But the new world is going to be built in the new world. It's not going to be built piecemeal out here in weblandia. When we use browsers to access it, it will be a window into that world, but it will not be that world.
  • The efficacy of "invite" based marketing is very interesting. Certainly it worked like gangbusters for GMail and for various social networking sites (eg facebook). In a less formal way, for IM clients like ICQ and AIM as well. I think that the common denominator is social interaction. Perhaps that's why they are spouting off about being a social browser that allows better blogging, posting, trolling, flamebaiting, etc. The blogs and forums could be a path to market share.

    I also think that social "invit

  • "their's" (Score:4, Funny)

    by adavies42 ( 746183 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @05:27PM (#13725219)
    Impressive, that one's quite rare.
  • I can only speculate whether this particular project will be successful, but I'm glad to see more projects emerging that aim to stretch the limits of our current browser-centric expectations.

    AJAX is only such a hot topic because it's a clever new programming scheme that lets us overcome the horrible, decades-old limitations imposed upon us by the web's origins.

    The idea of a request/response transaction model may have been cool when people wanted to access relatively static documents or document structures

  • 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".

    Well, shoot, that's great! I can't do any of that with Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla, or Firefox! I can't wait to see what I've been missing.

  • The even have href="mailto:contact@flock.com" right on their index page.

    Totally clueless losers.
  • I guess I'm weird. I want applications that do one job, one job only, and does it damned good. I don't want applications that attempt to do everything, but in the process doesn't do anything as well as it could if it were more focused. Do-it-all applications tend to be jack of all trades, but master of none.
  • What a flocking waste of time...

  • Plain English for Aunt Gert (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HisMother ( 413313 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @06:05PM (#13725509)

    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?

    • He's not being clear because there's nothing to be clear about. A group of people that can't even make a plain-text page comply with web standards, and they're working on rolling out the next-generation web browser? A browser which, apparently, is going to revolutionize the way all mankind views digital information. It's so wonderful it's like the first light bulb wrapped in sliced bread.

      Flock : Firefox
      Bitboyz : nVidia
      The Greatest Vitamin On Earth : Centrum Silver

      There a pattern here?

  • The two way web (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kfg ( 145172 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @06:07PM (#13725525)
    Well thank God we can finally text; and even talk to each other over the Internet. It's about bloody time. Why didn't someone think of this sooner?

    KFG

  • They lost me at... (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Ultimate Fartkno ( 756456 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @06:21PM (#13725610)
    ..."We started Flock to build tools that empower people."

    I don't want my browser to "empower" me, I want it to quickly and efficiently let me waste time between classes while reading about computers and things that explode. The thought of an "empowered" browser (and my experiences at a local women's college) brings up some very disturbing mental images.

    Flock: You seem to be searching for pornography, which subjugates women and furthers the phallusocracy that keeps undeserving white men in power. Instead, I've directed your search towards some Andrea Dworkin you might want to peruse.

    Flock: Your search for 'Black Norwegian Metal' returned 217,000 hits. But might I suggest some Natalie Merchant, Bikini Kill, Ani DiFranco, or other womyn-friendly artists?

    Flock: I notice that your Slashdot history shows a disturbing number of posts that suggest discrimination towards homosexuals, people of African descent, and extraplanetary immigrants. Until you show a pattern of clicking and browsing of sites that further the cause of disenfranchised peoples of color or alternate sexuality, I will encrypt your "special" folder that you think I don't know about.

    And I bet it smells like patchouli, too.

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