2010 is off with a bang for Flock. Interest in the Flock social browsing experience continues to grow at an impressive rate worldwide. We continue to break new records on a weekly basis – in fact this week Flock surpassed 4.2 Million users on Facebook, which is up from 3 Million in early December.
Flock’s recent acceleration in growth has come primarily by way of active recommendations from our most enthusiastic fans – telling their friends about us via Facebook and Twitter. For this, we are extremely grateful. We have been fortunate to have a dedicated Community Ambassador, Evan Hamilton, who has been a die-hard champion of Flock for over three years here at the company. He has been our most vocal and visible advocate on all of the forums: answering questions, offering hi-fives when appropriate, and generally exuding his own form of ‘awesomeness’ by bringing superb enthusiasm and dedication to our offices on a daily basis.
Today, Evan is moving on to pursue his next chapter, and we will certainly miss his him around here. I would personally like to thank Evan for his positive attitude, public leadership and deep passion for the Flock mission throughout his time here. He is definitely someone who believes deeply that we all deserve to experience the web with a browser that better serves our collective needs.
Your raves, questions, comments and concerns will continue to be served by our dedicated staff, through @Flocker on Twitter, and through our support forums on GetSatisfaction. As always, your feedback is invaluable to us, so please keep it coming. We look forward to hearing from you.
-Dan Burkhart
Vice President, Marketing and Business Development
Dan ‘at’ Flock dot com
Today, the European Commission arrived at an important settlement with Microsoft regarding the manner in which Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser is presented as a default browsing option to consumers who are using Windows-based PC’s. The Commission has recognized not only that web browsers are extremely important in defining the overall experience for web users, but that this is also critical place to take action in order to promote choice and innovation on behalf of consumers so that open standards and innovation can flourish everywhere on the web.
Microsoft and the European Commission have agreed on Microsoft’s proposal to present a “Browser Choice Screen” to users with a choice of 12 browsers, based on popularity as determined by market share within the European Union. Flock was included as one of the 12 browsers, and this means that 100 Million Windows users will receive a window notifying them of their choice in innovative offerings other than Internet Explorer.
This is a big win for consumers.
Most people have surely made their choice in browsers without understanding the full range of offerings available. Above all, the Social Web continues to grow throughout the world, (Facebook added 250 Million users this year, topping 350MM, and Twitter continues to ignite passionate people from every corner of the globe) Flock’s specific focus on delivering a browser that is designed to better serve the needs of people who are not just consumers, but also active participants in social behaviors on the web; from publishing blogs, to updating profiles, to tweeting, to discovering media and staying better informed from all their own sources of interest…all from within the comfort of their own browser.
Flock is delighted about the spirit of the Choice Screen, and very excited to be selected as one of the browsers that will be presented to the broader European community. We are hopeful that many more people around the world will agree that the web has evolved far beyond the capabilities of conventional web browsers, and that Flock is the best solution for people who want to stay up to date with a variety of people, content and media as every day evolves quickly.
This is a fun follow-up post to our note we published on October 4th, when we had just recently crossed 2 Million total users on Facebook. Well, in just two and a half months, we’ve added another Million users of Flock on Facebook.
In the chart below you can see that we’ve been on a nice trajectory this year, and in particular we’ve seen exceptional growth occurring around the globe from those countries where Facebook and Twitter have also been growing at record pace. These are the kind of charts we all like to see, but our challenge is to keep it going. That’s where you come in.
If you're one of the many enjoying your Flock experience, please take advantage of our Flock Referral program by inviting your friends via Facebook to help them discover that Flock is the best browser for social web users.
We’re delighted with this recent growth and validation from millions of people. We’re also looking forward to 2010 with a great deal of hope and anticipation because we’ve been working on a new Flock experience that we believe is going to blow you away. We’ll start sharing more about the next version of Flock in the New Year.
For those that are interested in receiving an early peek at the beta, please submit your email to our list below so that we can send you your invite as it becomes available. (We don’t sell or share your contact information with anyone. We’re on the same team.)
Dan Burkhart
Vice President of Marketing
Dan at flock dot com
It’s been a tremendous year for Flock so far. We just hit a really nice milestone that we’d like to share with everyone. Flock just exceeded 2 million total users on Facebook. Of total Flock users, those who are active on Facebook have grown 280% in the first three quarters of 2009. We are honored to have this many people from around the world electing to make the switch to experience the social web with Flock as their browser of choice.
We appreciate Facebook, and all of its loyal fans worldwide for helping spread the word about Flock. Flock is an independent effort, and as such we are even more critically dependent on our fans to spread the word about the Flock browser. We are humbled and honored by this vote of confidence and look forward to evolving the Flock product to continually improve the web experience for our fans.
We have listened and learned from you – our invaluable community of users. And our team is busy building and is incredibly excited about delivering an even greater experience for our users in our next version of Flock 3.0, which is scheduled for release in Q1 2010. Flock 3.0 will first be made available early next year as a private beta to those users of our current release. More to come soon on this incredibly exciting project.
Earlier this year, Flock announced a specialized Eco-Edition of our browser geared towards those interested in environmental topics ranging from climate change to alternative energy, from hybrid vehicles to green design and green cuisine. As part of this release, we pledged that 10% of the proceeds generated from searches conducted in Flock’s Eco-Edition would be donated back to the environmental organization deemed most popular and fitting by the community of Eco-Edition users.
The Eco-Edition had a fantastic run, and was promoted by key partners such as TreeHugger, Grist, PlanetGreen, Ecorazzi, GroovyGreen and AllTop. We’re very appreciative for the great demonstration of support by all of these companies, and are pleased to announce the award of 10% of Flock’s Eco-Edition proceeds have been delivered to the Environmental Defense Fund (www.edf.org), by the choice of Flock Eco-Edition users.
Interestingly, people using Flock’s Eco-Edition conducted 80% more searches per user as compared to Flock’s overall population of users. This is a great testament to the fact that people can and will change their behavior when they believe that their actions will have an immediate and direct benefit to the world around them. For this, we’re grateful and honored to give to the E.D.F. and be part of initiating this great experiment.
Flock will not be able to continue supporting an Eco-specific Edition going forward, but we encourage everyone to customize their own versions of Flock to best suit their own unique assemblage of Feeds, Bookmarks, Friends and Media Streams to keep them informed about their own view of the dynamic world we live in.
Many Thanks,
Dan Burkhart
Vice President, Marketing and Business Development
Posted February 11, 2009 - 11:04am by Dan Burkhart
We’re quickly approaching the holiday that is designed to make you pause and think about the person in your life that is most deserving of a gesture of fondness. For some it’s a big deal…for others, it’s more of a device to drum up some action in their life that doesn’t currently exist. (Go get ‘em, Tiger!)
This Valentine’s Day, we’d like you to turn your friends on to the browser that helps put people together. Instead of handing off an unoriginal box of chocolates, tell the people you care about to download Flock and you’ll be turning them on to a browser that inspires people to stay connected with the friends and things they care about most in their lives. Take it a step further and offer a personal tutorial to show this person how to get their accounts set up, and voila - you’ll find that your Valentine will be impressed and amazed by what a guru you are.
Now you’ve just turned someone on to a browser that will change the way that they experience the Web, you’ve impressed them with your knowledge, and you’ve done it for free. Knowledge is a dangerous thing when you’re a bit crafty. We trust you can take it from there.
Thanks for helping to turn people on to Flock! We hope things go well. We’re always here to help.
Send us some notes to let us know how things went for you (email: flockteam at flock dot com). We always like to hear about good Flock introductions! We’ll be dropping some packages of goodies in the mail to those that make us laugh and cheer the most.
-Cheers
Dan Burkhart
V.P. of Marketing and Business Development
dan@flock.com
Ever since Flock was founded, we have envisioned the role of the browser to be much greater than an application that simply lets you view your favorite websites. Throughout the many versions of Flock released to the public to date, we have focused on key innovations that help you stay connected with your favorite sites, people, media and content so that you can be a happier, more informed and plugged-in person.
OpenID is an open standard for shared authentication across many sites. Simply, it’s your free, single digital identity that you can use to sign up for and log into many sites without dealing with all the paperwork. This idea has been around for a while, but only until recently has there been a broad enough adoption of both OpenID providers as well as sites supporting OpenID.
Although there has been quiet momentum and support building across the web for OpenID for some time, it was the folks at Vidoop that identified the need for the browser to play a critical role as the common denominator to best serve as the broker between a user’s OpenIDs and the increasing number of sites that support this standard for authentication. Vidoop also founded the Identity In Browser open source project (IDIB) and championed the vision for a browser that could help users discover and manage OpenID’s easily from the comfort of their own browser view.
Flock was introduced to Vidoop by the good folks at MySpace, and without a moments delay a meeting between the three parties was put together at our offices in Victoria, B.C. Our engineers all agreed on the critical role that Flock could play in aiding the adoption and management of OpenID and the result of the brainstorm was an extension we’re calling “OpenID for Flock”. This extension is a reference design for better Discovery, and Management of Identity in the browser and is Flock’s flagship contribution to the IDIB project.
The OpenID for Flock extension is available on our own extension site, as well as on the IDIB group page. We encourage everyone to watch the video above, download Flock 2.0, and install the extension to experience how gratifying it is to traverse the web and log-in to sites seamlessly with the assistance of the OpenID standard.
We’ve enjoyed our collaboration with the MySpace and Vidoop team on this project, and look forward to hearing about your thoughts and interest in getting involved with this project.
Once you’ve had a chance to experience OpenID in Flock, we’d appreciate it if you would help spread the word about Flock and OpenID. The more sites that support the OpenID standard, the better the web becomes for all of us.
-Cheers
Dan Burkhart VP of Marketing at Flock
Get Flock and Meet Your New Favorite Browser
We’ve got a fun product to tell you about. Today, Flock launched its latest product that is geared towards people who are passionate about keeping up with Fashion, Entertainment and Lifestyle trends. Flock’s ‘Gloss Edition’ is the world’s first fashion and entertainment browser designed to help people keep up with the latest fashion trends and celebrity lifestyle scoop (o.k. gossip).
We’ve put together a bundle of the best sources on the Web to bring you your daily dose of fashion inspiration, celebrity dish, and trends by including over 35 leading content providers and partners, from Glam, PopSugar, InStyle, ThisNext, DesignerApparel, AllTop and others. The best part about it is that all of this information comes to you, and is updated immediately as news and images are published. You’ll never miss a beat and people will wonder how you stay on top of it all.
We’ve also worked with a great panel of women to design a theme for the Gloss Edition of Flock that is pink, ‘soft’, fun and well suited for the fashionistas’ never-ending pursuit of stylish individuality.
We had fun building the Gloss Edition and we hope you have fun with the experience that it delivers. Check it out, and please don’t keep it a secret. Tell your friends about Flock.com/gloss.
-Cheers
Dan Burkhart
Vice President, Marketing
Dan at flock dot com
What if you sat down in a restaurant and the waiter asked you “…would you like that Good, Great, or UN-BE-LIEVABLE?” Of course you might ask about price, but if all options were free, of course you’d choose “UN-BE-LIEVABLE”.
That’s why we’ve been working so hard on our Flock 2 Beta, and our audience of loyal Flockstars has been growing so quickly. Everybody loves the latest improvements Mozilla’s Firefox 3 technology: much improved performance, tighter security and improved usability. However, what if you could have all of those great features AND all of the award-winning innovations that Flock offers? (That would be the integrated People, Media, WebMail, Photo Uploader, Blog Editor, Feed Reader, and more.) Today, we’re making our second beta of Flock 2 available for everyone to enjoy, and you can take your browsing experience from great…to UN-BE-LIEVABLE for free.
In this latest release of Flock 2 Beta (two) we’ve taken your feedback very much to heart and included over 175 bug fixes, and incorporated Mozilla’s latest security patch from their 3.0.1 release. Flock 2 Beta (two) is fast, even more stable and polished.
Now lets get back to the UN-BE-LIEVABLE part. Millions of people still keep their lives ‘organized’ on the Web by opening heaps of tabs. Those uninitiated to Flock often say “I don’t need anything to manage my stuff; I keep them open in tabs.” We believe this is not terribly different than ‘organizing’ your life by stacking papers all over your desk. People around the world are falling in love with Flock’s ability to help them remain connected to the variety of sites, services, and content that interests them, without stacking tabs all over their desktop. Flock keeps your world organized and brings your most important and interesting items and events to you.
Go ahead: order up the “UN-BE-LIEVABLE” version of browsing that leaves tired old conventional browsing in the dust…or, trapped under heaps of tabs.
You can get Flock 2 Beta (two) from http://www.flock.com/beta/download, where you can also find several articles detailing the improvements we’ve made.
-Enjoy
Dan Burkhart Vice President, Marketing Dan at flock dot com
The recent surge of interest for the Flock browser has given us a lot of energy to make sure that we’re making the Flock experience available for as many people as possible around the world. As with most of our feature decisions, we looked at serving the largest audiences of users first, and so it was an easy decision for us to focus on our largest non-English speaking market of Germany to deliver our first ‘deeply localized’ build of Flock. The Social Web is exploding in Germany, and so it is natural that there are many fans of Flock interested in a more authentic, truly German experience. The Flock German edition is available here.
What does this mean? Well, our custom German experience is more than just ‘skin’ deep. The Flock DE edition ships with local content, media streams and service offerings from the most popular sites in Germany. (For example: sports content from sites like Sports1.de, and bundesliga.de rather than ESPN.com. News from Spiegel.de and FinancialTimes.de instead of CNN.com). Search services deliver German search results (for example, Yahoo.de, Amazon.de, eBay.de, Wikipedia.de, etc). Social sites like Facebook, Flickr and YouTube are defaulted to return the German experience.
We’re very proud of the German experience provided in the Flock DE version. We’re also looking forward to working with our dedicated volunteer localizers worldwide to continue rolling out similarly ‘deep localizations’ for other countries going forward. We plan to upgrade the DE edition to Flock 2 (built on the same technology as Firefox 3) as soon as our Flock 2 beta cycles are completed.
If you are a German speaking Flockstar and enjoy the German Flock experience, please help us spread the word and let people know that there is a much better way to experience the Web, with Flock.
