Comments on: Browser Review: Flock – The Social Browser http://www.automaticable.com/2008-05-26/browser-review-flock-the-social-browser/ adjective: of or pertaining to things that should work but go awry Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:38:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Evan Hamilton http://www.automaticable.com/2008-05-26/browser-review-flock-the-social-browser/comment-page-1/#comment-483 Evan Hamilton Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:28:25 +0000 http://www.automaticable.com/?p=256#comment-483 Hey Kyle, Just wanted to let you know that the beta version of Flock 2, which is powered by Firefox 3, is now available at http://www.flock.com/beta/download. Flock on! Evan Hamilton Flock Community Ambassador evan at flock dot com Hey Kyle,

Just wanted to let you know that the beta version of Flock 2, which is powered by Firefox 3, is now available at http://www.flock.com/beta/download.

Flock on!

Evan Hamilton
Flock Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com

]]> By: Kyle Wegner http://www.automaticable.com/2008-05-26/browser-review-flock-the-social-browser/comment-page-1/#comment-353 Kyle Wegner Tue, 27 May 2008 22:58:58 +0000 http://www.automaticable.com/?p=256#comment-353 Hey Evan, thanks for stopping by. I think weighting is an interesting idea. I wouldn't want to weight entire networks/streams, as a larger issue in my mind would be rating individuals within those networks. There are plenty of people I have as "friends" or contacts that I don't need to hear updates about that often, while keeping track of others within that same network are the main reason I use Flock. Maybe a ratings or starring system could be put in place on individuals and/or networks so only a certain % of updates are shown. Also, I would definitely be interested in updating multiple statuses at once. Now that Facebook has made the "X is..." introduction optional, I tend to use it more like Twitter anyway. Being able to update both at once would be very convenient. I'm excited to hear Flock is in Alpha with FF3. I'll definitely be testing that out as soon as it is released. Hey Evan, thanks for stopping by. I think weighting is an interesting idea. I wouldn’t want to weight entire networks/streams, as a larger issue in my mind would be rating individuals within those networks. There are plenty of people I have as “friends” or contacts that I don’t need to hear updates about that often, while keeping track of others within that same network are the main reason I use Flock. Maybe a ratings or starring system could be put in place on individuals and/or networks so only a certain % of updates are shown.

Also, I would definitely be interested in updating multiple statuses at once. Now that Facebook has made the “X is…” introduction optional, I tend to use it more like Twitter anyway. Being able to update both at once would be very convenient.

I’m excited to hear Flock is in Alpha with FF3. I’ll definitely be testing that out as soon as it is released.

]]> By: Evan Hamilton http://www.automaticable.com/2008-05-26/browser-review-flock-the-social-browser/comment-page-1/#comment-352 Evan Hamilton Tue, 27 May 2008 22:22:04 +0000 http://www.automaticable.com/?p=256#comment-352 Hey Kyle, Great review, thanks for spreading the love! Linux support is coming soon, from what I hear. Cross your fingers! As for Firefox3, we'll be updating to that codebase later this year...in fact, we already have a very nice Alpha running on that code. @Scott Wegner: Great points on weighting notifications. I think Kyle is right: you'll find Flock's notifications helpful but not overbearing. That said, weighting is very interesting and I'd love to hear if you think we need it once you've tried it. As for statuses: would you be interested in the ability to update multiple statuses at once? Howabout you, Kyle? Flock'n'roll, Evan Hamilton Flock Community Ambassador evan at flock dot com Hey Kyle,

Great review, thanks for spreading the love!

Linux support is coming soon, from what I hear. Cross your fingers!

As for Firefox3, we’ll be updating to that codebase later this year…in fact, we already have a very nice Alpha running on that code.

@Scott Wegner: Great points on weighting notifications. I think Kyle is right: you’ll find Flock’s notifications helpful but not overbearing. That said, weighting is very interesting and I’d love to hear if you think we need it once you’ve tried it.

As for statuses: would you be interested in the ability to update multiple statuses at once? Howabout you, Kyle?

Flock’n'roll,

Evan Hamilton
Flock Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com

]]> By: Kyle Wegner http://www.automaticable.com/2008-05-26/browser-review-flock-the-social-browser/comment-page-1/#comment-347 Kyle Wegner Tue, 27 May 2008 12:39:16 +0000 http://www.automaticable.com/?p=256#comment-347 Hey Scott, good questions. It looks like in an effort to keep this semi short I breezed over a few points too quickly. I'll go back and edit the original post to make things more clear, but in the meantime here are the answers to some of your questions. 1) As far as blog platforms go, Flock can be used as a tool to write new posts from. It supports platforms such as Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress, Xanga and more. 2)The social updates look like they will always be pushed to you live, but they aren't distracting in any way as they come in. Generally I don't use the "all" tab on the Social Sidebar to see incoming updates; instead I use the individual tabs for each social network so I can see the streams as they happened there. 2b) As far as updates go, you actually do not update all of your statuses (statii?) at the same time. What I meant (and will go clear up asap) is that you have the ability to change them all within the People Sidebar with very little effort. You have to go to each tab individually and update, but this takes much less time than if you were to go to each site manually and change your status. 3) I would say currently I use Flock about 50% of the time at work. This seems low, but it is for good reason. Currently I am also testing Firefox 3 Beta as much as possible. More importantly, though, I wanted to keep Flock as fast as possible, so I am not using it to do any intense SEO work, so none of those extensions are enabled. This means I use Firefox 2 a good chunk of the time to do my real work. 4) I do not use Flock at home since it is not on the distro list for Linux, though I did install it yesterday so I could test it while writing this post. It did fine, but I'll wait until it is officially supported to use it for real. That was a long comment, but I hope it clears everything up for you. Keep the questions coming! Hey Scott, good questions. It looks like in an effort to keep this semi short I breezed over a few points too quickly. I’ll go back and edit the original post to make things more clear, but in the meantime here are the answers to some of your questions.

1) As far as blog platforms go, Flock can be used as a tool to write new posts from. It supports platforms such as Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress, Xanga and more.

2)The social updates look like they will always be pushed to you live, but they aren’t distracting in any way as they come in. Generally I don’t use the “all” tab on the Social Sidebar to see incoming updates; instead I use the individual tabs for each social network so I can see the streams as they happened there.

2b) As far as updates go, you actually do not update all of your statuses (statii?) at the same time. What I meant (and will go clear up asap) is that you have the ability to change them all within the People Sidebar with very little effort. You have to go to each tab individually and update, but this takes much less time than if you were to go to each site manually and change your status.

3) I would say currently I use Flock about 50% of the time at work. This seems low, but it is for good reason. Currently I am also testing Firefox 3 Beta as much as possible. More importantly, though, I wanted to keep Flock as fast as possible, so I am not using it to do any intense SEO work, so none of those extensions are enabled. This means I use Firefox 2 a good chunk of the time to do my real work.

4) I do not use Flock at home since it is not on the distro list for Linux, though I did install it yesterday so I could test it while writing this post. It did fine, but I’ll wait until it is officially supported to use it for real.

That was a long comment, but I hope it clears everything up for you. Keep the questions coming!

]]> By: Scott Wegner http://www.automaticable.com/2008-05-26/browser-review-flock-the-social-browser/comment-page-1/#comment-346 Scott Wegner Tue, 27 May 2008 03:03:59 +0000 http://www.automaticable.com/?p=256#comment-346 Interesting... a few questions: You say that Flock is also compatible with almost any blogging platform-- how so? Does it make it easy to add and follow comments? Or is it for integrated posting for your own blog? Also, a reason I haven't tried Flock yet is that I feel my personal use of different social sites isn't always that of the "average" user, so perhaps the social integration would be annoying. For example, maybe I subscribe to numerous Flickr users just so I always have something fresh, but this doesn't mean I need Flickr updates as often as Facebook updates. Is there any way to "weight" the importance of different social interactions and websites? Also, you mention that you can update your status on all social sites at once-- can I update, say.. all except Facebook? It sounds to me that you're pretty happy with Flock so far. Does this mean you're using it regularly, or even exclusively? If not, about what percentage of the time do you prefer to use other browsers, and what are the circumstances? Lastly, you do mention that it is cross-platform, which I think is great. There is a Linux version available, but no native Ubuntu package in the repositories-- unfortunate. I hope they add one in the future, because it will make Flock far more accessible to Ubuntu users! Interesting… a few questions:

You say that Flock is also compatible with almost any blogging platform– how so? Does it make it easy to add and follow comments? Or is it for integrated posting for your own blog?

Also, a reason I haven’t tried Flock yet is that I feel my personal use of different social sites isn’t always that of the “average” user, so perhaps the social integration would be annoying. For example, maybe I subscribe to numerous Flickr users just so I always have something fresh, but this doesn’t mean I need Flickr updates as often as Facebook updates. Is there any way to “weight” the importance of different social interactions and websites? Also, you mention that you can update your status on all social sites at once– can I update, say.. all except Facebook?

It sounds to me that you’re pretty happy with Flock so far. Does this mean you’re using it regularly, or even exclusively? If not, about what percentage of the time do you prefer to use other browsers, and what are the circumstances?

Lastly, you do mention that it is cross-platform, which I think is great. There is a Linux version available, but no native Ubuntu package in the repositories– unfortunate. I hope they add one in the future, because it will make Flock far more accessible to Ubuntu users!

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