Flock (web browser)

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Flock
DevelopersFlock, Inc.
Initial releaseApril 11, 2005; 21 years ago (2005-04-11)[1]
Preview releasenone (n/a) [±]
Repository
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Engine
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    Operating systemWindows, OS X, Linux[2]
    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
    Feed reader
    LicenseFreeware[3]
    WebsiteOfficial website archives

    Flock is a discontinued web browser that specialized in providing social networking and Web 2.0 facilities built into its user interface.[4] Earlier versions of Flock used the Gecko HTML rendering engine by Mozilla. Version 2.6.2, released on January 27, 2011, was the last version based on Mozilla Firefox.[5][6] Starting with version 3, Flock was based on Chromium and so used the WebKit rendering engine.[7][8] Flock was available as a free download, and supported Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and, at one time, Linux as well.

    Support for Flock was discontinued in April 2011.[9][10]

    History

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    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]

    Features

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    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 could track updates from friends: profiles, uploaded photos, and more. Flock 2.5 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

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    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% 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 some 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."[9]

    Awards

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

    See also

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    References

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    1. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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    3. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    4. ^ Flock Browser – Built on Mozilla's Firefox Archived March 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
    5. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    6. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    7. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    8. ^ a b c Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    9. ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    10. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    11. ^ Flock Browser - Company Info Archived March 14, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
    12. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    13. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    14. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    15. ^ a b Official release announcement on Shawn Hardin's blog Archived October 18, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
    16. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    17. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    18. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    19. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    20. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    21. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    22. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    23. ^ a b c d Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    24. ^ a b c Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    25. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    26. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    27. ^ Web Awards Archived March 23, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
    28. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    29. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    30. ^ I Have A New Favorite Web Browser: Flock Archived November 8, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
    31. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    32. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    33. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    34. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
    35. ^ Flock Wins a Webby Award for Best in Social Networking Archived May 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
    36. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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