Jump to content

Flock (web browser)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.89.139.58 (talk) at 13:23, 12 October 2012 (not on live site). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Flock
Developer(s)Flock, Inc.
Initial releaseApril 11, 2005; 19 years ago (2005-04-11)[1]
Preview releasenone (n/a) [±]
Operating systemFreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X (Intel), Windows
Available inCatalan, Chinese (both Traditional and Simplified), English (US, Australian, British, Canadian), Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Italian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal + African Portuguese Speaking Countries and Brazil), Russian, Slovak, Spanish (Latin American and Spain)
TypeWeb browser
LicenseProprietary Software[citation needed] and GPL, some components also LGPL+MPL
Websiteflock.com

Flock was a web browser that specialized in providing social networking and Web 2.0 facilities built into its user interface.[3] 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 Firefox.[4][5] Starting with version 3, Flock was based on Chromium and so used the WebKit rendering engine.[6][7] 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. A year later in April 2012 the old Flock website was back and carried a vague indication that the project might be resurrected, inviting readers to add themselves to a mailing list to receive future news.[8][9][10]

History

Flock was the successor to Round Two, who raised money from Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures, Shasta Ventures and other angel investors. Bart Decrem and Geoffrey Arone co-founded the company.[11] Flock raised $15 million in a fourth round of funding led by Fidelity Ventures on May 22, 2008, for an estimated total of $30 million, according to CNET. The company's previous investors, Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures, and Shasta Ventures, also participated in the round.[12]

In January 2011, Flock Inc. was acquired by Zynga.[13] The browser has been discontinued, with support ending April 26, 2011.[14]

In April 2012, a page appeared on flock.com with a quote from Mark Twain stating "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," and provided a signup form where users could enter their email to receive "updates".[10] There is no indication that the developers behind the Flock browser are responsible for this page.[citation needed]

Features

Flock 2.5 integrated social networking and media services including MySpace,[15] Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc.[16] 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:

Reception

In December 2007, Flock won the Mashable Open Web Awards for Applications and Widgets[26] and in March 2008, Flock won the South By Southwest[27] Web Award for Community.[28]

CNET gave the Mac OS X version of Flock 1.0 the title of "Best Mac Software of 2007".[29] PC World's Harry McCracken reviewed Flock as his "New Favorite Web Browser".[30]

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.[31] For the Netscape 8 userbase, AOL recommended only the Flock browser to its users.[32] 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".[33]

In May 2008, Flock won the Social Networking category of the Webby Awards.[34][35] Flock was nominated for this award along with Facebook, Bebo and Ning.

When Flock's discontinuation was announced in April 2011, 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."[8]

Awards

Upon exiting beta, Flock won a number of awards:[23]

  • "Eddy Winner": Flock 2.0 24th Annual Macworld Editors' Choice Awards [36]

See also

References

  1. ^ Festa, Paul (April 11, 2005). "Start-up wants to improve on Firefox". CNET. Retrieved August 2, 2010.
  2. ^ Flock website Retrieved April 11, 2011
  3. ^ Flock Browser – Built on Mozilla's Firefox[dead link]
  4. ^ "Flock 2.6.2 Release Notes". Flock. Retrieved December 9, 2010.
  5. ^ "Powered by Mozilla". Flock. Retrieved December 9, 2010.
  6. ^ Iedtke, Michael (June 16, 2010). "Flock Browser Gets Faster, Friendlier With Upgrade". ABC. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
  7. ^ a b c Wayner, Peter (October 19, 2010). "Top 10 specialty Web browsers you may have missed". InfoWorld. p. 2. Retrieved October 28, 2010.
  8. ^ a b Sneddon, Joey (2011). "End of the line for Flock social browser". OMG Ubuntu. Retrieved April 15, 2011. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  9. ^ Flock Inc (April 15, 2012). "Support for Flock browsers has been discontinued". Archived from the original on April 29, 2011. Retrieved April 10, 2012.
  10. ^ a b Flock.com (undated). "Flock". Retrieved April 26, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ Flock Browser - Company Info[dead link]
  12. ^ "Flock draws $15 million for social browsing". CNET. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
  13. ^ Wasserman, Todd (January 7, 2011). "Zynga Buys Social Web Browser Flock". Mashable. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
  14. ^ Van Grove, Jennifer (April 12, 2011). "Flock Shutters Social Web Browser". Mashable.
  15. ^ a b Official release announcement on Shawn Harding's blog[dead link]
  16. ^ "Activate Services and Unite Your Social Networks in the People Sidebar". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  17. ^ "Share Pictures, Text, Audio and Video". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  18. ^ "View and Share Media through the Media Bar". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  19. ^ "Track Feeds". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  20. ^ "Activate and Manage Blogs". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  21. ^ "Review: Strong, innovative Web browsers emerge". Associated Press. Retrieved June 26, 2008.
  22. ^ "Get or Build Add-ons for Flock". User guides. Flock. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  23. ^ a b c d "Flock's press".
  24. ^ a b c "Flock Named As One of PC World's "100 Best Products of 2008"". Retrieved June 17, 2008.
  25. ^ "The 100 Best Products of 2008". PC World. Retrieved June 17, 2008.
  26. ^ December 21, 2007 by Adam Hirsch 86 (December 21, 2007). "Open Web Awards Winners". Mashable.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  27. ^ Web Awards
  28. ^ McCarthy, Caroline (March 11, 2008). "Oh wait! SXSWi had Web Awards, too". News.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  29. ^ Parker, Jason (December 20, 2007). "Best Mac Software of 2007". Download.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  30. ^ I Have A New Favorite Web Browser: Flock
  31. ^ "Netscape 9 Users: Time to Flock or Firefox". Blog.netscape.com. February 20, 2008. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  32. ^ "Netscape 8 Update Forthcoming: You Can Flock Too!". Blog.netscape.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  33. ^ "Flock Browser Use Growing Dramatically". Reuters.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  34. ^ "2008 Webby Award Winners". Webbyawards.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  35. ^ Flock Wins a Webby Award for Best in Social Networking[dead link]
  36. ^ Michaels, Philip. "Eddy Winner: Flock 2.0". Macworld.com. Retrieved May 21, 2012.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flock_(web_browser)&oldid=517392879"