Flock, the first social media web browser has announced that it will be shutting down effective April 26, 2011. Found by Alexia Tsotsis at Techcrunch, the Flock team posted an, “official end of support notice” today. The Flock team was acquired by Zynga earlier this year. Flock is suggesting that users immediately download Google Chrome or Firefox to make sure they stay current with security patches and updates.

Here’s the posted notice, “Support for Flock browsers will be discontinued as of April 26th, 2011. We would like to thank our loyal users around the world for their support, and we encourage the Flock community to migrate in the coming weeks to one of the recommended web browsers listed below.”

I wrote about Flock many times, even offering some specific suggestions on how they could grow back in 2009. Flock targeted social media experts and ninjas and it seemed that group was never big enough to get Flock higher up in the sky. You can even read my 2nd interview on CN with Flock co-founder Geoffrey Arone from way back in late 2006.

I think Zynga picked up a bright team — I found all of my conversations with the Flock team to be educational and I always walked away learning something new about the industry.

It will be interesting to see what learnings new social media browser RockMelt takes from Flock’s history.

Find more stories about: browser, Flock

Last night I wrote about the new 2.5 release of the Flock social browser. We know that Flock targets the over-sharing crowd but is that in itself enough to make the company very successful? I started to think about how Flock could gain more mainstream acceptance and help push Flock further along in the browser wars. What follows is my suggestion for the company.

Flock should develop a “lite” or “simple” version of their browser. Currently their browser can be overwhelming to the average mainstream Internet user and it frankly probably scares a lot of people away after the initial load. What I’d like to see are three new “lite” versions:

• Flock with Twitter panel
• Flock with Facebook panel
• Flock with Twitter and Facebook panels

That’s it. No MySpace, no Bebo, no Flickr, none of it. Just a browser that includes a sidebar for Twitter and/or Facebook. There are plenty of new social desktop applications like Tweetdeck but these also focus on the over sharing crowd.

Now imagine a browser that takes the simple Twitter.com interface plus a browser and combines them together. Flock 2.5 allows you to easily drag-and-drop items from the browser to Twitter/Facebook and that functionality should remain. That’s what I think Flock Lite should be. Nice and simple which will appeal to the mainstream, average Facebook/Twitter user. I’d also like to see an installation wizard that makes setting up the browser amazingly easy. Over time Flock can move the user to the full Flock browser.

Find more stories about: browser, Flock, social media, Twitter

We’ve written about the Flock social browser a good number of times here at CN including the launch of the 2.0 version. Tonight’s launch of the Flock 2.5 release builds upon the “socialness” of the previous releases.

What I found most interesting in the new Flock release is the ability to drag-and-drop items from one network to another. If you want to share a photo from Flickr to your friends on Twitter, you can just drag the photo to the Twitter window and a message will be created with a link to the image. The Twitter integration continues with the ability to save searches into a sidebar for each viewing. It’s almost as if Flock has integrated a mini-desktop app (e.g. tweetdeck) with the full browser functionality.

The new “Flockcast” functionality is also a great addition. Flockcast allows you to broadcast your items to multiple networks. If you share a Flickr photo, you can select to share the item to Facebook as well. Flock says this can also help bloggers because content uploaded to a blog via Flock can be broadcast to multiple networks at once using the Flockcast option.

Flock has also announced that it has integrated Bebo into the browser. Flock self-reports that the browser is used in over 14,000 cities and over 192 countries and territories.

Lastly the new Flock browser has integrated Facebook chat so you can converse with your Facebook friends directly from the browser. The drag-and-drop functionality I noted above is also available with the Facebook chat option.

The updates should be well received by loyal Flock users as they increase the ability to share content along with usability improvements that should increase overall usage.

Chris Nuttall at the Financial Times has commentary from CEO Shawn Hardin.

Find more stories about: Bebo, Facebook, Flock, social media, social net, Twitter

So imagine this… it’s Valentine’s day and you are trying to figure out what to get that special someone (e.g. your sweet thing, your baby momma, baby daddy, cutiepie). Most people usually get lingerie, chocolates, roses, flowers, a nice card, bottle of wine and a movie, etc.

The Flock browser has launched an interesting marketing effort today. They want you to skip all of those things and instead give your sweetie a Flock browser. Flock marketing VP Dan Burkhart notes in a blog post, "This Valentine’s Day, we’d like you to turn your friends on to the browser that helps put people together. Instead of handing off an unoriginal box of chocolates, tell the people you care about to download Flock and you’ll be turning them on to a browser that inspires people to stay connected with the friends and things they care about most in their lives.  Take it a step further and offer a personal tutorial to show this person how to get their accounts set up, and voila – you’ll find that your Valentine will be impressed and amazed by what a guru you are."

Somehow I am thinking if you show up with a usb key with a demo video and a Flock installation, you might head home early. 

It will be interesting to hear from Dan on how the campaign went – since they create customized versions, it might be neat to create a valentine’s day edition where you can create a pre-set layout with images, videos, etc. I give Dan much credit for trying out the idea!

Find more stories about: browser, Flock, Quick News, valentine's day

Just a month after the public launch of the Flock 2.0 browser, Flock has announced the addition of OpenID to the Flock 2.0 browser today. I’ve been saying for a long time that if OpenID wants to succeed, they have to get it into the browser so when you hit a site that offers OpenID login, it could be as close to seamless as possible.

MySpace, Flock and Vidoop jointly developed OpenID for Flock which should help the Flock browser gain additional user adoption. OpenID for Flock is now available to all Flock 2.0 users as an alpha extension — my hope is that it becomes part of the default install over time. The companies note, "The MySpace, Flock and Vidoop (OpenID) implementation is a reference design released as open source under GPL, and as such, modifications by developers will be brought together and shared with the wider open source developer community."

Perhaps today’s announcement will push the other major browsers (IE, FF, Safari, Opera, etc.) to start looking at implementing OpenID into the browser as well. I am not talking about an extension or plugin, but rather a full integrated environment. If OpenID is going to gain in popularity and usability, it’s critical that using an OpenID login as easy as possible.

With all of the talk over the last few days about Facebook Connect, it sure does look like eventually we will have an old-style Western duel setup. Facebook Connect vs. OpenID – let’s get it on!

Find more stories about: browser, Flock, MySpace, OpenID, Quick News

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.

Find more stories about: browser, Flock, gigaomnews, Quick News

Social browser Flock has announced the launch of a new, customized version of their browser today. The new version is named Gloss and brings together Flock’s browser technology with fashion and entertainment content from over 35 sources. Glam Media, who yesterday announced the launch of their platform, is one of the launch partners. Other content providers include: Glamour, The Budget Fashionista, TMZ, Cosmo, DesignerApparel, PopSugar and others.

Within the Flock Gloss browser, there are news feeds and pre-set favorites along with a pink design (see below). My guess is that we will see a variety of these customized versions from Flock this year as they try to gain market share in the browser market.

Check out all of our Flock coverage including the launch of their Eco-Green and German versions.

Find more stories about: browser, Flock, Glam Media, Quick News, social media, Social Networking

By now we all know that Germany lost the EuroCup to Spain. To make up for some of the pain that Germans all over the world are feeling, Flock has launched a full German-language edition of their social browser.

It’s more than just a language translation – the browser is rich with German language content. They call this conversion, "deep localized". Dan Burkhart notes, "The Flock DE edition ships with local content, media streams and service offerings from the most popular sites in Germany. (For example: sports content from sites like Sports1.de, and bundesliga.de rather than ESPN.com. News from Spiegel.de and FinancialTimes.de instead of CNN.com). Search services deliver German search results (for example, Yahoo.de, Amazon.de, eBay.de, Wikipedia.de, etc). Social sites like Facebook, Flickr and YouTube are defaulted to return the German experience." 

And Flock says more localized versions will be coming soon as soon as the "dedicated volunteer localizers worldwide" offer up their free labor.

Find more stories about: browser, Flock, Germany 2.0, Quick News

Social browser Flock certainly has had an interesting last 12 months. First a good number of executives left, then they released the .9 version of the Flock browser. They launched the full 1.0 version later in 2007 and since they have won a number of awards.

Today they are announcing the Flock 2.0 Beta which is built on top of the Firefox 3 platform. Flock is a social media browser – they have created a browser which helps social media junkies save time and effort when working with blogs, images, videos, etc. The new version offers a variety of enhancements including security updates and improved performance.

Most of the people I’ve spoken with over the past year have tried Flock but eventually go back to Firefox. Let’s see if the 2.0 version is able to keep their core audience engaged, installed and actually using the browser on a regular basis.

You can download the beta here. Anyone else find it interesting that they made this announcement the day before Firefox Download Day?

Update from Flock: Flock reported a 400+ percent increase in revenue and a 250+ percent increase in users since January 2008.

Update: Webware has a good review of Flock 2.

Find more stories about: browser, Flock, Quick News

Marketing guru and Web-celeb. Guy Kawasaki has recently added another accolade to his growing list of Alltop superlatives, browser homepage.

In honor of Earth Day, Flock recently launched a special edition of their popular browser with an unprecedented promise, to donate 10% of revenue generated from the niche browser’s searches to charity; and after winning an award for community at SXSW, the charity will be selected by none other than the Flock community itself.

So what does this have to do with Alltop? Well, rather than trying to aggregate "Green" content on their own, the folks at Flock made a smart move and brokered a deal with Guy to use Green.Alltop.com as the special edition’s homepage.

In the end, Flock increases distribution and continues to improve their rep., Alltop.com gets turnkey traffic, and some lucky charity will hopefully get a bunch of money. Sounds like a good Earth Day to me.

You can download the Eco-Edition of Flock here and if you feel like extending your browsing good even further, add the Effortless Good extension. In addition to your searches generating money for charity, any time you shop at Amazon, a portion of your purchase will split among 4 non-profits.

With several years of startup experience already behind him, Rick Kenney is a senior Mass Comm. student and Marketing Intern with The Participatory Culture Foundation, the people behind Miro.

Editor’s note: Flock is a current CN sponsor.

Find more stories about: Alltop, browser, Flock, Guy Kawasaki, Quick News, Rick Kenney

As many of you know, the Netscape browser is being retired and development will no longer continue. Netscape has posted several messages on the blog supporting Mozilla as an alternative and has provided directions on how to make the transition. Tonight they have added Flock to the recommended browser list.

From the Netscape blog:

Previously, the Netscape Team recommended that Netscape browser users adopt Firefox as their next web browser. We would also like to suggest Flock as another alternative to the Netscape web browser. Flock is a web browser that combines all of the advantages of Firefox with the addition of social integration. If you are looking for your next browser and are interested in Firefox with social integration, give Flock a try.

Flock has also announced version 1.1 of their browser this week at the MacWorldExpo. If you’d like to learn more about Flock, check out my interview with Flock CEO Shawn Hardin from late 2007.

Find more stories about: Flock, Netscape, Quick News

Alright, last week we were the first to get you a review of the Flock 0.9 browser and tonight we have the first screenshot of the new Flock.com launching on Tuesday to support the new browser. Check it out below! (click for larger version)

Find more stories about: Flock, Quick News

Last night I had the chance to receive a demo of the new Flock 0.9 browser with CEO Shawn Hardin. The official launch is next week but if you want to grab the preview today, check it out on their beta page along with the welcome information. Also check out my discussion with Shawn from last week.

Overall I would say that the comparisons to Firefox are no longer warranted. This is a very powerful browser for those of you who use social networking and social media heavily. There is a pretty hefty initial setup curve to get all of your social accounts setup but you only have to do this once.

The first thing Shawn walked me through is what he calls the "differentiated value bar" – which is shown below. The options here expose the power of Flock and include a Web Clipboard which basically allows you to quickly save any bit of content by dragging it to the clipboard. Items are saved until you remove them.

Also included are a feed sidebar which is basically a slick feed manager, media bar manager and one click access to blogging and uploading.

The Media Bar is a way to see your (and your friends) media in a quick and efficient way. The "media streams" stay updated in real-time so if your friend adds a new image that falls into one of your defined areas, it will appear automatically. The Media Bar works with all of the services that are incorporated in Flock (listed below). Inside the media streams window there is a search option to search your streams and/or search your providers. A quicker way to get to the media you need than going to each individual site.

Currently Flock 0.9 has the following media services setup:

• Media Sharing: Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube
• Blogging: Blogger, Blogsome, LiveJournal, Typepad, WordPress.com, Xanga, Self Hosted (I couldn't get it to work with Drupal)
• Online Favorites: del.icio.us, Magnolia

Flock continues to allow one click blogging and uploading. They have beefed up the upload tool which allows you to resize, rotate, etc to any photo and create tags and descriptions for each one or for a batch. Then you upload the media to any service you have setup. On the flickr upload example, it's like the standalone flickr uploader on steroids.

Other features include a bug/feedback system, one click favorites (love this); "My World" which is basically a start page that keeps track of your favorite sites, feeds and media; and the ability to save favorites locally, online or both.

Shawn closed the demo by saying he is most excited about the updates coming this summer and the 1.0 release in the early fall which will include some significant upgrades (he wouldn't tell me what they are). My suggestion is simple… if you are a heavy user of the social tools listed above, give Flock a try. If you tried it before and gave up, I would take another look. I am impressed by what I saw and while this isn't the browser for everyone, their target audience should find a great value in Flock.

Find more stories about: browser, Flock, Reviews, social media

Last week I had the chance to speak with Flock CEO, Shawn Hardin. We spoke for about 90 minutes and I learned a lot about Shawn's vision for the company and his commitment to the Flock users and Flockstars. We have written about Flock in the past and I have a much more positive view on the company after the discussion. Here are my notes:

• Flock has offices in Mountain View and in Canada
• 1.5 million downloads of the 0.7 Flock browser
• 450k cumulative users this year – Shawn kept thanking the users during the call
• The next version – 0.9 is in private beta currently and will deploy in 3-4 weeks
• The 1.0 version will be available in late summer

Shawn said he is most excited about the following two things:

• That Flock has a roadmap for the next 12+ months
• They have executional and operational capability throughout the year

We talked about their general strategy:

• Supporting and enhancing the social dimension
• As integrated as possible with social media
• Heavy focus on the user
• They have a usability lab which looks at usage over time

Lastly we spoke about their revenue model:

• 60-140 million folks who value social experience <– this is their target
• Shawn noted that Firefox is currently averaging about $3 per user per year using their Google Partnership. Flock currently shares revenue with Yahoo on the same type of basis

I think Flock has to get some good publicity out there. It seems more times than not when I hear about Flock it is something either not-so-positive or negative (such as people leaving the company). I also think Flock should look at creating some videos on why Flock is better than just using Firefox plus x social tool. Does it save me time? Show me. Does it save me hardware? Show me.

I also suggested that Shawn create a "State of the Flock" video which goes over some of the parts of the roadmap. Text is fine but he is very passionate and that is just nearly impossible to have come out in text. Create a video. Show the team. Let them say why Flock is the best. Then explain that Flock has a plan for the long-term so that the users can really believe that if they switch, they won't be left for lost in a few months.

Find more stories about: Flock, Insights, Interviews

We have received a tip that it appears as though Flock's VP of Engineering and Product Development role might be opening up soon. See the image below (from the Flock about page) for the people who have left Flock over the past months.

I have been working with Flock's PR team for a couple of months now to schedule a time for me to meet with new Flock CEO, Shawn Hardin. We should be able to connect next week and I will report back after our discussion. I am very interested in learning more about what Flock is working on and their new leadership vision.

If you have any questions you would like me to ask Shawn, please leave them in the comments.

Find more stories about: Flock, Quick News