Flock (The Social Web Browser)

I stumbled upon this site while browsing and find it to be very interesting. 

When you first install it, it will ask if you want to import bookmarks from Explorer or Chrome (I chose Chrome as that is my browser of choice.)


Here is what it looks like:

Flock can do things that other browsers cannot.  Watch this demo video:

New Flock from Flockstar on Vimeo.



Flock is made specifically for social networks.  In the top right hand corner is a button you can click on to turn on the side bar that will show you live updates from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin as they happen.

You can resize the sidebar by dragging on the left side of the sidebar window.

There is another neat feature.  At the top in the center to the left of the address bar is a button called the Talk Panel (a speech bubble icon) that lets you quickly post and share to Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin or a select combination of the three.

When you click on the button, the top portion of the screen will have a window that looks like this:

You can select any combination of the three social networks at the top (in the red circle).  Notice the one for Facebook looks different in this screenshot.  This is the way you can tell which ones you will be posting to.  Click on to select or deselect the ones you do and don't want to post to.

You can also post just the link to the page on Facebook or you can send in an email (in the red square).

One thing I noticed is that regardless what you set your home page as, when you open a new tab, it automatically takes you to your personal area with Flock (if you have signed up for a FREE account).

Notice the Home, Favorites, Groups and Explore tabs.  You also have your profile and account options to view as well.  

If you select the Favorites tab, you can choose which ones you want to share to make visible on your profile page.  You can then go to your profile to see them.  You can set your Profile page to private or public.  You will also see all of the posts you have done organized in one central location down the left hand side of your Profile page.under What I'm Talking About.  Your Profile also has its own URL you can share with others shown to you at the top of your profile page.

Under Groups, you can create specific groups to place friends into and view only that Group's updates.

To view the group(s) you just made, under the sidebar at the top is a drop down menu.  Here is where you will select which group you want to view.

While under the Groups view, you can also drag and drop friend card on-top of each other to combine them.  When you hover your mouse over a friend, you will see a text pop out saying Drag to add to group or onto another card to combine friends.

As you drag it, you can make sure before you release that you are where you want to drop it at:

Then when you drop it onto another, you will get a little windows asking you to name that group:

This is where you will rename it.  Now your friends are grouped under the new name you gave it. If you accidentally grouped one some where you did not mean to, simply grab onto the icon in the box or select see all and drag and drop the friend back out of the group to take them out.  See all will let you view everyone in the group to see all their updates.


Another way to do this friend combine is if you hover over a friend, next to their name you will see a little pen.pencil icon appear.  You can click on this to open a windows showing everyone, so you can quickly click on multiple friends to combine faster than doing the drag and drop (especially if they are not right next to each other).  This drag and drop and combine cannot be done in the sidebar.  Also, this is not for creating groups for viewing in the side bar.   Which ever one you drop the other onto will be the main shown one (larger).  The other will be shown under the See more and their icons will be smaller under the main friends icon, as so:

At the top right hand corner is an icon that looks like a box with a few lines going through it.  This is where you can custimize and control Flock from.  You have the following options to choose from:

You can use Stealth mode which is just like going Incognito in Chrome.  It is if you want to browse web sites without them appearing in your browser's history.

There are some others features that are offered by Flock that make this browser unique and different from the others.  Check it out yourself to see if it is right for you and your social needs.

ENJOY!

Flock is Powered By: Chromium and Mozilla