Not sure that I understand what is supposed to be so wonderful about flock. To me it seems to be taking users back to the days of the ‘walled garden’ days of the AOL application that lulled/forced users into using it for all of their email, browsing and content instead of just using a browser directly.
I also have a big problem with all of that personal data aggregation being tied to running the flock browser. Why not use one of the many (and growing) number of web-based tools to aggregate your ‘personal infocloud‘ so that it is available everywhere you are (including from mobile devices).
Hey rich,
The advantage to using Flock versus a webpage-based social aggregator is that you can carry your friends and media with you WHILE you surf, allowing many opportunities to share and transfer this information without a lot of inconvenient clicks. An example: You’re on a blog with embedded Flickr photos. You mouse over one of these photos and you are given the option to load that “media stream” in Flock’s Media Bar. *Without leaving* the blog, the photos load in a bar at the top of the browser. You see one you like, and you drag and drop it from the Media Bar to a friend on Facebook, in Flock’s People Sidebar. Flock automatically sticks that image in a message to them. You click send, and you’re done. That’s a lot of simplification.
Additionally, you *can* just visit the pages how you like; you don’t have to use any or all of our features.
Flock is not a “walled garden”…we use the exact same API’s that these webpage-based aggregators do, we just display them within the browser tools. There is nothing underhanded about the way we access this data, we don’t keep your personal info for our use, and as soon as you log out of your networks, that info is removed from FLock.
I hope my comment is a little reassuring, and I hope you give us a try sometime!
Evan Hamilton
Flock Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com