Flock Moves 2.0 Browser Release Into Full Public Release

Flock has announced that they have moved the 2.0 version of their social browser into full public release tonight. Flock initially launched the 2.0 browser in beta back in June. Since then they have added a variety of customized installations including German and fashion versions.

The major updates in the Flock 2.0 release include MySpace integration, Media RSS accessibility. The company also notes that the new version is based on Firefox 3 and has a host of improvements and users should find memory management much improved over the 1.0 release.

Flock VP of Marketing & Business Development Dan Burkhart took me through the new version last week and shared some download stats. To-date there has been 6 million downloads and 3.6 million of the total are from the 1.0 release. I asked Dan who is their target user and he replied that the target user utilizes 2 or more social services and if you do use 2 or more, you will see a benefit by using Flock.

Dan and I also discussed the ad downturn that might be approaching and he noted that the current Flock monetization is double the plan numbers. He also pointed to their Series D raise from 2 months ago of $15 million.

The big push for the company now is the college market. Dan says that the college market could prove very beneficial for Flock as most students are using multiple social services.

I’ve been using the Flock version launching tonight for the last week and I see a performance improvement over the prior versions. Although on my Pentium 4 desktop, I still find it lags behind IE and FF in load times and certainly behind Chrome. Flock reminds me of a new couch. At first it’s hard and a bit uncomfortable but after you sit on it a few times, you find the sweet spot and life is grand. Flock requires a lot of setup but once it’s customized to your needs, it works well. The key for Flock is figuring out how to get users to their sweet spot as quick as possible.