Flock (web browser)
Encyclopedia
Flock was a web browser
that specialized in providing social networking
and Web 2.0
facilities built into its user interface
.
Earlier versions of Flock used the Gecko
HTML rendering engine
by Mozilla
.
Version 2.6.2, released in July 2010, was the last version based on Mozilla.
Starting with version 3, Flock was based on Chromium
and so used the WebKit
rendering engine.
Flock was available as a free download, and supported Microsoft Windows
and Mac OS X
platforms (previously also Linux
).
Support for Flock was discontinued in April 2011 and the developers recommended users switch to Google Chrome
or Mozilla Firefox
instead.
, Catamount Ventures, Shasta Ventures, and other angel investor
s. Bart Decrem and Geoffrey Arone cofounded the company.
Flock raised $15 million in a fourth round of funding led by Fidelity Ventures
on May 22, 2008. The company's previous investors, Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures, and Shasta Ventures, also participated in the round. "The company plans to use the funds to expand its research and development, marketing, and global expansion efforts. To date, the company has raised an estimated $30 million," according to its press release.
Flock was one of the 12 browsers offered to European Economic Area
users of Microsoft Windows
in 2010.
In January 2011, Flock Inc. was acquired by Zynga
. The browser has been discontinued, with support ending April 26, 2011.
, Facebook
, YouTube
, Twitter
, Flickr
, Blogger
, Gmail
, Yahoo! Mail
, etc. Notably, when logging into
any of the supported social services, Flock can track updates from friends: profiles, uploaded photos, and more. Flock's latest 2.5 version 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:
In December 2007, Flock won the Mashable
Open Web Awards for Applications and Widgets and in March 2008, Flock won the South By Southwest Web Award for Community.
CNET
gave the Mac OS X version of Flock 1.0 the title of "Best Mac Software of 2007." PC World
's Harry McCracken
reviewed Flock as his "New Favorite Web Browser.".
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. For the Netscape 8 userbase, AOL
recommended only the Flock browser to its users. In March 2008, Flock announced that they had seen "nearly 3 million downloads" and a 135% percent 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."
In May 2008, Flock won the Social Networking category of the Webby Awards
. Flock was nominated for this award along with Facebook
, Bebo
and Ning.
In April 2011 when Flock's discontinuation was announced, 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."
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
that specialized in providing social networking
Social network service
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user , his/her social...
and Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
facilities built into its user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
.
Earlier versions of Flock used the Gecko
Gecko (layout engine)
Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation , as well as in many other open source software projects....
HTML rendering engine
Web browser engine
A web browser engine, , is a software component that takes marked up content and formatting information and displays the formatted content on the screen. It "paints" on the content area of a window, which is displayed on a monitor or a printer...
by Mozilla
Mozilla
Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....
.
Version 2.6.2, released in July 2010, was the last version based on Mozilla.
Starting with version 3, Flock was based on Chromium
Chromium (web browser)
Chromium is the open source web browser project from which Google Chrome draws its source code. The project's hourly Chromium snapshots appear essentially similar to the latest builds of Google Chrome aside from the omission of certain Google additions, most noticeable among them: Google's...
and so used the WebKit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
rendering engine.
Flock was available as a free download, and supported Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
platforms (previously also Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
).
Support for Flock was discontinued in April 2011 and the developers recommended users switch to Google Chrome
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
or Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
instead.
History
Flock was the successor to Round Two who raised money from Bessemer Venture PartnersBessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners is a private venture capital firm with offices in Silicon Valley, New York, Massachusetts, Israel, China, and India.Bessemer Venture Partners is the longest-standing venture capital practice in the United States...
, Catamount Ventures, Shasta Ventures, and other angel investor
Angel investor
An angel investor or angel is an affluent individual who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity...
s. Bart Decrem and Geoffrey Arone cofounded the company.
Flock raised $15 million in a fourth round of funding led by Fidelity Ventures
Fidelity Ventures
Fidelity Ventures is the venture capital arm of Fidelity Investments. Based in Boston, Massachusetts and London, Fidelity Ventures invests in emerging technology companies in North America and Europe. Their focus is on the go-to-market stage, where companies have products and early customer...
on May 22, 2008. The company's previous investors, Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures, and Shasta Ventures, also participated in the round. "The company plans to use the funds to expand its research and development, marketing, and global expansion efforts. To date, the company has raised an estimated $30 million," according to its press release.
Flock was one of the 12 browsers offered to European Economic Area
European Economic Area
The European Economic Area was established on 1 January 1994 following an agreement between the member states of the European Free Trade Association and the European Community, later the European Union . Specifically, it allows Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to participate in the EU's Internal...
users of Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
in 2010.
In January 2011, Flock Inc. was acquired by Zynga
Zynga
Zynga is a social network game developer located in San Francisco, United States. The company develops browser-based games that work both stand-alone and as application widgets on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace....
. The browser has been discontinued, with support ending April 26, 2011.
Features
Flock 2.5 integrated social networking and media services including MySpaceMySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
, Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
, Blogger
Blogger (service)
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
, Gmail
Gmail
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
, Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is a web mail service provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 273.1 million users as of November 2010....
, etc. Notably, when logging into
Logging (computer security)
In computer security, a login or logon is the process by which individual access to a computer system is controlled by identifying and authentifying the user referring to credentials presented by the user.A user can log in to a system to obtain access and can then log out or log off In computer...
any of the supported social services, Flock can track updates from friends: profiles, uploaded photos, and more. Flock's latest 2.5 version added Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
Search functionality, multi-casting of status updates to multiple services, and the introduction of instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
via Facebook Chat in the browser.
Other features include:
- native sharingFile sharingFile sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...
of text, links, photos and videos; - a "Media Bar" showing preview of online videos and photos as well as subscription to photo and video feeds;
- a feed reader supporting AtomAtom (standard)The name Atom applies to a pair of related standards. The Atom Syndication Format is an XML language used for web feeds, while the Atom Publishing Protocol is a simple HTTP-based protocol for creating and updating web resources.Web feeds allow software programs to check for updates published on a...
, RSSRSS-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
, and Media RSSMedia RSSMedia RSS is an RSS extension used for syndicating multimedia files in RSS feeds. It was designed in 2004 by Yahoo! and the Media RSS community, and adds several enhancements to RSS enclosures...
feeds; - a blog editor and reader, allowing direct posting into any designated blog;
- a WebkitWebKitWebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
-mail component allowing users to check supported web-based emailWeb-based emailThe term Webmail is used to describe two things. One use of the word is to describe a Webmail client: an email client implemented as a web application accessed via a web browser. This article focuses in this use of the term...
off site, compose new messages, and drag-and-dropDrag-and-dropIn computer graphical user interfaces, drag-and-drop is the action of selecting a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object...
pictures and videos from the "Media Bar" or webclipboard into a new email message; - support for third-partyThird-party software componentIn computer programming, a third-party software component is a reusable software component developed to be either freely distributed or sold by an entity other than the original vendor of the development platform...
add-ons, including a number of Firefox extensions.
Reception
- Download.comDownload.comDownload.com is an Internet download directory website, launched in 1996 as a part of CNET. Originally, the domain was download.com.com. The domain download.com attracted at least 113 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study....
rated 5 out of 5 - Ranked no. 6 on PC WorldPC World (magazine)PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
's list of the 100 best products of 2008
In December 2007, Flock won the Mashable
Mashable
Mashable is an American news website and Internet news blog founded by Pete Cashmore. The website's primary focus is social media news, but also covers news and developments in mobile, entertainment, online video, business, web development, technology, memes and gadgets...
Open Web Awards for Applications and Widgets and in March 2008, Flock won the South By Southwest Web Award for Community.
CNET
CNET
CNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...
gave the Mac OS X version of Flock 1.0 the title of "Best Mac Software of 2007." PC World
PC World (magazine)
PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
's Harry McCracken
Harry McCracken
Harry McCracken is creator of Technologizer, a technology-oriented website. He also presently writes a weekly column with the same name for the TIME.com website. Harry is also a contributing editor at CNET....
reviewed Flock as his "New Favorite Web Browser.".
In February 2008, AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
announced that it would discontinue support for the Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
browser, and recommended Flock and Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
as alternative browsers to its userbase of Netscape 9
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
users. For the Netscape 8 userbase, AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
recommended only the Flock browser to its users. In March 2008, Flock announced that they had seen "nearly 3 million downloads" and a 135% percent 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."
In May 2008, Flock won the Social Networking category of the Webby Awards
Webby Awards
A Webby Award is an international award presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile....
. Flock was nominated for this award along with Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, Bebo
Bebo
Bebo is a social networking website launched in July 2005. It is currently owned and operated by Criterion Capital Partners after taking over from AOL in June 2010....
and Ning.
In April 2011 when Flock's discontinuation was announced, reviewer Joey Sneddon of OMG! Ubuntu!
OMG! Ubuntu!
OMG! Ubuntu! is a Linux review blog that was launched in August 2009, that provides reviews, developments and updates about Ubuntu and its derivatives. The website is part of the Ohso Ltd Network. Its main focus is average Ubuntu users, rather than developers....
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."
Awards
Upon exiting beta Flock has won a number of awards:- Webby Award in social networking, 2008
- SXSWSouth by SouthwestSouth by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
community Award, 2008 - Open Web AwardMashableMashable is an American news website and Internet news blog founded by Pete Cashmore. The website's primary focus is social media news, but also covers news and developments in mobile, entertainment, online video, business, web development, technology, memes and gadgets...
for Applications and Widgets, 2007
- "Eddy Winner": Flock 2.0 24th Annual Macworld Editors' Choice Awards
See also
- Comparison of feed aggregatorsComparison of feed aggregatorsThe following is a comparison of notable RSS feed aggregators. Often e-mail programs and web browsers have the ability to display RSS feeds. They are listed here, too.Many BitTorrent clients support RSS feeds for broadcatching ....
- Comparison of web browsersComparison of web browsersThe following tables compare general and technical information for a number of web browsers. Please see the individual products' articles for further information.-Historical web browsers:...
- List of feed aggregators
- List of web browsers
- RockMeltRockMeltRockMelt is a free social media web browser developed by Tim Howes and Eric Vishria. The project is backed by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen....
, competitive social web browser