http://flock.com

With its sleek interface and social Web features, Flock just may become the browser of choice for edubloggers and others. Why? Because Flock’s feature set focuses on the social aspects of Web 2.0. Edubloggers are also keen on the Web’s social offerings, professional learning networks, blogging, and getting connected. So, let’s take a closer look now that I have been testing the post-beta release, Flock 1.1, for a few days.

Flock offers seamless integration with Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and more. In the screenshot above, I am microblogging with Twitter in the sidebar under the “People” tab, perusing my YouTube favorites in the media streams view strip at the top of the browser, and all that while managing my Flickr account at the same time. The integration between these components is fascinating and timesaving. I can, for example, post the current page URL into a Twitter message with just the click of a link. I can do the same with photos by dragging and dropping them on top of a twitter friend’s tweet. That is cool! Or perhaps I will decide to drop a Youtube video onto my Twitter sidebar to share a video that I just found that my twitterverse might enjoy, too. Flock is one big social frenzy that lets me share as I need to, quickly with no fuss! And, it is pretty to boot. While Firefox is a fantastic workhorse, I have never been fond of its visual layout and design.

At first I was a little disappointed that Flock doesn’t offer a Foxmarks-like equivalent for syncing my bookmarks between computers and for safekeeping should something go wrong. On further inspection, I discovered that Flock has native support for sharing bookmarked favorites with del.icio.us. Isn’t that better? Foxmarks isn’t all that social at all. I want to both safeguard my bookmarks and share them. Flock does this and quite well. Goodbye Foxmarks, one less thing to worry about. I like streamlining and working smarter. I am a very busy person. I can also say goodbye to twhirl, Snitter, TwitBin, TwitterFox, etc. All those extra gadgets, gone!

Bloggers get ready! Flock has a basic bare bones built in blog editor and publisher. In just a few clicks, my edublogs.org blog was linked to my browser. One more streamlining advancement. I am getting happier by the moment. Goodbye Windows Live Writer (well, I may keep WLW since I really like it .. but I don’t really need it now, guess just a matter of weaning).

There are many many more features in Flock that allow me to connect and integrate faster and smarter with an increasingly social Web. Tools like a photo uploader, media bar, a drag and drop sidebar clipboard (links, text, images, etc.), feeds aggregator/reader with folder management, and more.

What could make this even better? Since Flock is built on Firefox architecture, most of the Firefox addons work with Flock, too. Simply navigate to the Firefox addon page and install as usual. P.S. The Foxmarks addon is not compatible, but as already noted, not really all that relative now.

As you can see in the people sidebar screenshot to the right, all my social sites’ activity appears in chronological order in the same timeline. No more bouncing around between Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to keep tabs on what my friends are up to.

Ready to get Flocked? I did, and it feels nice!

Related reading/viewing:
Flock Wins Web Award at SXSW Conference
Edit: My twitter pal Liz Davis’ Flock Introduction video (March 28, 2008)