Community

Wow. We honestly didn't prepare a speech for this event...

A few weeks back, Flock was humbled to have been nominated amongst such esteemed heavyweights as Facebook, Bebo, Ning and ChangeEverything.ca for the annual Webby Awards in the Social Networking category. Late last night, we were alerted that Flock won the Webby Award for this incredibly competitive category. For a 40 person company, filled with passionate individuals who have been working late nights and straight through weekends, this is a very pleasant, unexpected, and flattering surprise!

This year marked the 12th annual Webby Awards ceremony. They received over 10,000 nominations from 60+ countries worldwide. The Webbys have long been recognized as a very special acknowledgement of the companies that are leading in key areas of excellence and innovation. Past Webby Award winners have included: Amazon.com, eBay, Yahoo!, iTunes, Google, NPR, Salon Magazine, Evite, Meetup, Wikipedia, Flickr, PBS, and The Onion.

We are delighted about receiving this prestigious award, and would also like to congratulate Facebook for winning the People's Voice award within the same category. We're very close with the good folks over at Facebook and always appreciate what good partners they have been to Flock.

As always, we continue to be grateful to the millions of users around the world who have downloaded Flock, and to those that continue to champion Flock as a fun, fresh and innovative alternative to conventional browsers.

Thanks to the Judges of the Webby Awards, as well as our own Community of Flockstars for making the first third of 2008 a wild success.

-Cheers!

Dan Burkhart

Vice President, Marketing

dan at flock dot com

Hey Flockstars,

First of all, a big thanks to all those who showed up to the Flockstar meetup in San Francisco last night. It was a small group, but we had a blast being able to talk to you face-to-face, show you 1.2, and talk about non-tech stuff.  We hope you had a good time too, and we'll definitely do another meetup soon!

I've been at the Web 2.0 Expo on and off all week.  We ran into a lot of Flockstars, including at the booths; IBM was apparently sporting Flock in their demos, and Coghead had a very passionate (and now stickered-up) Flock evangelist demoing their product with Flock.  I saw people rocking Flock on a number of laptops in the sessions, and got a lot of thumbs up for my Flockstar shirt.  We know you're out there, but it's just great to see the actual faces of people who use our product.

I think by far one of the most interested and pertinent sessions was one hosted by Jonah Peretti (of Buzzfeed) called "Influence is Overrated".  Jonah himself is a great study in how someone who would not be considered an "influencer" or an expert could end up on Good Morning America and in People talking about sweatshops and relationships.  Jonah started several projects for fun because he found them entertaining (such as ordering custom Nike shoes with the word "Sweatshop" on them) that spread and spread until they organically found their way to the press.

The point here is not that Jonah is a brilliant tactician or a key influencer; it's that he created something that was compelling to REAL people.  They sent these amusing sites off to their other friends who sent it to others who sent it to still more, until it became big enough that Katie Couric discovered it.  He was not a key influencer, but he influenced people because he had a compelling product that spread like wildfire.

I love this concept, because we've never made Flock for the critics.  We originally started building Flock because we wanted a tool to make our online lives easier.  We knew that you needed and wanted it too, but just didn't know quite what "it" was.  This is also why Flock was built as a full browser: instead of having to assemble your online experience, we do our best to build and integrate it for you (while still providing many customization and extension abilities).  We have grown and spread significantly in the last few years, and it's not because of key influencers writing about us.  It's because of YOU writing to your friends about Flock, YOU proudly sporting your "Blogged with Flock" tags, YOU putting Flockstar stickers on your laptops and shirts on your bodies, and YOU telling people that they HAVE to try Flock.  You have more influence than anyone labeled an "influencer" will ever have, because you are real and passionate and your own community listens to you.

Thank you for lending your influence to Flock.  I hope you will continue to evangelize Flock whenever you get a chance.  We'll keep innovating and improving it for you.

See you at the next meetup...shoot me some ideas about when and where we should hold one!

Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com

Since the launch of Flock’s v1 product, we’ve taken great pride in receiving positive notes from our community about how Flock has “changed the way that [they] experience the Web”. Flock provides the technology, and people bring their widely varied interests and add their friends to the mix to create an experience that is entirely tailored to suit their needs.

We’ve recently embarked on an exciting project to create some new “editions” of Flock, which will appeal to people that share strong passions for particular causes and topics. We are launching our maiden “edition” today: the “Eco-Edition” of the Flock browser, which delivers the best environmentally conscious “green” content and media available from around the web in a tightly organized format, all available from a single download. Once the browser installs, it updates with fresh eco-content daily in the form of news feeds, media streams, and favorite sites, delivering an experience that is dynamic, connected and always fresh.  We’ve included an extensive offering of content topics, and fully expect people to prune and further refine the experience to better serve their own preferences once they’ve gotten acquainted with Flock.

Flock provides a unique platform for browser-based content programming -- users bring their passion for topics of interest. With the “Eco-Edition”, environmental information ranges from “alternative energy” to “climate news” to “green design + architecture” to “green cuisine”. Creating awareness is the best way to effect change, and we’re glad to help by donating 10% of proceeds from the Eco-Edition to an environmental charity, as determined by all the users of the Eco-Edition at the end of 2008.

We’re hitting record growth numbers for new downloads and users every week, and have been thrilled by the many vocal advocates of Flock. We are targeting Flock’s next product release, v1.2, for launch in May and have some exciting new services integrated which we know you’re going to enjoy, because your requests guide our feature prioritization.

We will also release new editions for other passionate audiences over the months to come. We hope these editions will introduce Flock’s unique capabilities to new audiences that will be delighted by what they discover in Flock and join the global community of raving Flock fans.

We’re excited to see what happens when we mix Flock, People and Passion together. And we’re thrilled to kick off this new program with the “Eco-Edition”.

As always, we are very much looking forward to your input and feedback.

Hey Flockstars,

UPDATE: The event is a go!
Come meet up with us on Thursday!

Some of us from Flock HQ will be ducking our heads into Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco next week.  How many people would be interested in grabbing drinks and food with some members of the Flock team?  We can talk about what's coming up, what you're hoping for in Flock, what you love, and how we can continue to spread this awesome community.  It'll be casual and fun, and we'll bring some Flock swag for you.

We'd love to meet up with you, so drop a comment here or email me directly if you'll be in the Bay Area next week and interested in a meetup!

Flock'n'roll,

Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com

Hey Flockstars,

As we noted in March, Flock's community is growing.  I have been lucky enough to work with and be part of an amazing, passionate, vocal community so far, and all signs point to this community of Flockstars growing in coolness as well as size.

As you have seen me say time and time again, your feedback is very important to us.  We are building this browser for YOU, and making the collective you happy is our primary goal.  This manifests in many ways: integrating services that you clamor for (like Picasa), working with you to quickly and efficiently crush bugs, bridging the gap and meeting you where you hang out (www.twitter.com/flocker), etc.

Your awesome feedback pours into us through the forums, our feedback tool and social networks.  Several members of the team, including our executives, read this feedback daily and respond to as many as possible.  I personally have spent many a late night responding to your feature requests and comments.  Frequently, the love you have sent in gets emailed out to the staff.

However, we are growing and have been unable to keep up with the flood of your feedback. Another company might find a way to cut down on your feedback.  They might make it harder to find these tools (like my bank does!), give you preformatted responses saying "thanks for your interest", or simply not respond. Flock is not one of those companies.

And so, I am thrilled to introduce our newest team member.  Jen Anderberg started at Flock last week as our Community Support Lead. In the coming weeks she will take over more and more of the "support" side of your feedback, while I continue to concentrate on your feature requests, your general happiness with Flock, and helping you get the word out about the social browser.

Jen resides at Flock North, our Canadian office, and will also be assisting that team wherever they need it.  She is an English major and a smart cookie, and will undoubtably be filling many different roles, like we all do here at Flock.

Please give Jen a warm welcome and do please continue to send your feedback to www.flock.com/feedback, our forums, here on our blog or directly to me or Jen. We're very excited about being able to respond to you even quicker!

Flock'n'roll,

Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com

Hey Flockstars,

I was sitting in the weekly Flock Staff Meeting today, and I couldn't help but mention to the team: "our community is awesome!"

I feel this way all the time, but the reason I had to specifically call it out this week is because you all have been incredibly supportive and helpful during the short sidebar outage (two Flockstars even provided their Facebook login info to help us track it down).

Minutes later, while trying to digest some intense staff meeting pasta, I ran across the awesometacular Gary Vaynerchuck's video about "Good People Day 08".  He is always an inspiring guy, but he is positively bursting about GPD08, for good reason: there are few better feelings than recognizing and thanking good people in your life.

With that in mind, Flock would like to officially hand our Good People Day '08 thumbs up to you, our fantastic community.

There is a reason we affectionately refer to those who use Flock as Flockstars.  You folks rock.  You are our stars.  Because of you, we are able to continue having a blast making this product we LOVE.  Because of your constant feedback, we are able to make Flock better and better in a way we never could entirely through internal brainstorming.

Most importantly, because of your outspoken love for Flock, your ecstatic word-of-mouth, your blog posts, your Twittering, your VOICE, we are still here building an amazing browser that we care about just as much as you do.

Thank you.

Keep on spreading the word and we'll keep making this thing for you.

Now it's your turn...head out into the world and thank the good people in your lives.

Flock'n'roll,

Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com

It wasn’t that long ago when people were buzzing about the (then) whiz kid, Marc Andreessen, and his amazing Mosaic browser, which later resulted in the explosive growth and meteoric rise  of the Netscape browser. Netscape not only brought the Internet to the masses, but it played a role in changing the world. It goes without saying that the innovation was too important to go unnoticed.

That same spirit of innovation that brought the original Netscape browser to 90% of our desktops, and ultimately the open-source Mozilla Project.  This started the populist movement inspiring developers from around the world to contribute code for the collective call-to-action of out-innovating its formidable competitor. Somewhere between the punk-rock appeal of the Boston Tea Party, and the socialist ideal of thousands of developers connected by a desire to work together to build a superior product, the Open Source movement flourished better than ever before. With AOL’s support, the Mozilla Project became the Mozilla Foundation, and Firefox became the rallying cry for users seeking a more secure, better performing, innovative browser built by the people, for the people.

Our charter here at Flock has been made possible in part by coupling the same innovative spirit that pioneering Netscape developers used to bring browsing to the masses, with the foundation of shared technology that Mozilla’s Open Source charter generously makes available to us. We have been invigorated by the daily emails and positive comments we receive from our users, and feel confident that Flock is playing an important role of keeping the spirit of innovative browser evolution alive and well.

With the decision to cease ongoing support of the Netscape browser, we are honored to have the support and endorsement of AOL and Netscape, who have introduced Flock to millions of loyal Netscape users as AOL sunsets ongoing support for the Netscape products in the field. Tom Drapeau  from Netscape has been instrumental in helping increase awareness of the Flock browser, and by doing so has introduced a global audience of people to the unique experience that only the Flock browser delivers.

Flock is designed to support and enhance the way that we use the web today. We appreciate Tom’s assistance in helping get the word out, and encourage you to be a champion of innovation by telling your friends about your experience with Flock as well. If you like the idea of people working late nights to deliver a free product to you, so that you can get more enjoyment out of your daily web experience, please lend a hand.

Netscape ruled, and now Flock rocks! We’re committed to keeping the Netscape’s original spirit of innovation alive and well.

-Many Thanks

Dan Burkhart

VP of Marketing
dan at flock dot com

Update: Flock 1.1.1 does fix all the People sidebar issues. You should receive an automatic update to 1.1.1 shortly, or you can manually upgrade by downloading it from www.flock.com. Localized updates are slightly behind schedule because of a build server issue, but should be out in the next day or so.

Hello Folks,

We’ve become aware that some Flock users have recently been experiencing issues with their Facebook People sidebar not logging in. Even though everyone can still log into Facebook, the much loved People sidebar is not logging in as it should.

We continue to make good progress on this matter. For the broad majority of users, downloading the latest version of Flock from our homepage will provide the fix you are looking for. If you download the latest version of Flock and you are still experiencing problems with your Facebook People sidebar, we’d like to hear from you at flock-feedback2 at flock dot com.

We will be pushing out an automatic upgrade to the latest version of Flock (version 1.1.1) shortly to make sure that all those affected with this authentication problem have their lives returned to normal Flock goodness.

-Thanks for hanging in there with us

Dan Burkhart
VP of Marketing
dan at flock dot com

Update:This problem has been solved in Flock 1.1.1. To fix the sidebar issue please download and install Flock 1.1.1 from www.flock.com or by going to Help>Check for Updates. Thanks for your patience and help!

We've seen reports that some folks are logging into Facebook as usual, but the People sidebar in Flock isn't opening.  It's as if the login to the page is working, but the additional features in Flock aren't available (specifically the People sidebar isn't recognizing the login). That's exactly what's happening: for reasons we don't yet fully understand, the Facebook API is not allowing authentication in these cases.

These symptoms don't seem to be very wide-spread, but until we've determined and fixed the API issue you might see this behavior.  If you do, here's how to work around it.  With the help of some Flockstars out there we've gotten a hold of Facebook accounts that exhibit this problem, and we've discovered the following work-around: in all cases we have found that clicking the 'Accounts' or the 'Privacy' link on facebook.com will "kick-start" the API authentication, and the People bar will start working again.

If you are logging into Facebook and not seeing the People sidebar as usual, please click on Privacy or Accounts on the facebook.com page. This should make API come to life and allow the authentication you need for your people to flow into the sidebar.  If clicking either Accounts or Privacy on the facebook.com page doesn't return things to normal, please let us know (flock-feedback2 at flock dot com).

We will work with the fine folks over at facebook.com to get a permanent solution to this in the coming days.  In the meantime, please follow the instructions above, and accept our apologies for this temporary inconvenience.

Thank you

-Dan Burkhart

VP of Marketing

dan at flock dot com

Hot off the press, blogging live from this year's South By Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin TX. Flock won for best showing in the Community category. No doubt in large part to the raving support of our loyal community, who keep championing Flock as the best browser for the way we use the web today. Given the always interesting crowd of entrepreneurs and trend-setters at SXSW, we couldn't be happier about this acknowledgement of Flock. Thank you, SXSW.