I quite like Flock but....

Flock is a new browser aimed at those who are more interested in using social media than the more traditional uses of the Web.



I have a few doubts about it.

The first is the implication - as I am from a farming community - that I am a sheep. Word association. Nothing more, I'm sure! But it still bothers me.

On top of that, Chrome and Flock seem to have an issue. Currently, I am keeping them apart and using them on different compootas whilst I have work to do. Come the weekend, I may allow them to duel and see what the result is, but it's only the first day of the working week.....

Finally, I am not a one woman horse. Or whatever the saying is. I need to view docs, deepscan PDFs, watch videos, follow multiple alerts on Twitter, delicious etc, check my emails etc. I am never just tied into 'social media' alone. This is why my smartphone died. Plugging the 28" monitor in, I think, killed it.

Oh, I knew it. I'm already being too negative. You want some positives. OK.

Actually, I don't think I can struggle to recommend Flock. Yet. (Can you tell I have a cold and it still isn't Spring here yet?! I will endeavour to switch off the -vety!)

If my day was purely made up of diving in and out of Twitter, Facebook, Digg etc (which despite all appearances to the contrary, it isn't), then Flock is a classy little number. A black dress, almost.

I like MyWorld. It's easily manageable and configurable. I wasn't hit with that "Ooo-er, it's a third party app wanting my password" shiver down the spine moment at all on setting it up. In actual fact, it reminded me of several dormant accounts which I have now enlivened, purely to run them through Flock, which I haven't really had time to monitor for ages *cough* years *cough*. There are times when being an early adopter and hyperactive on the Net has its disadvantages....

I lurv the different sidebars. People, apps, media etc. Aw, c'mon on, they iz funky! I like being shown exactly what I might be missing on the page, though I am beginning to really get the feeling now that most of us on flat screen monitors are going to have to size up by a factor of at least two just to see any screen estate.

What with all the different tool bars in each browser, being left with 3" of webpage to view is getting tiresome. Whether it's a PDF (not in Flock thanks), a video, stream, etc (Yes, in Flock), screen estate seems to be getting as valuable as some Knightsbridge Mews and about as small.

But Flock does overcome that if you use it for what it is excellent at. As a tie-in to Tweetdeck etc, it shows you exactly what is available on the link you just clicked in the way of multi-media. It shows you what you might miss - RSS feeds, a podcast, a chunk of unmissable video, photos etc, without you searcing the page for the link. I **DO** like that. Lots.

Co-ordinate your multimedia actions through Flock and it frees up Chrome (which has definite JS issues), FF (which seems to throw me out for having 300 multimedia tabs open at a time - PAH!), Safari and Opera. In one hit.

I'm new to Flock, but I may well put all my multimedia work through it from now on, and leave the other browsers to do the work of the grunts. You and I know that our paying clients can't always relate to 'experiments', even when the tool turns out to be the Vileda super mop of the internet marketing world! But if Flock stops all my other browsers crashing for a while, I may be a very happy Easter bunny!