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The team has been hard at work here at Flock, and we’re now extremely proud to extend the public beta version of our next product for you to test and enjoy. You can get it here. We hope you’ll not only test out the Flock 1.1 beta, but also let us know what you think about the latest additions of Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Picasa integrated directly into your favorite browser. We’ve also made some very exciting improvements to the MyWorld page, which we’re sure you’re going to love.
Here’s the quick summary of what’s new in the 1.1 Beta:
Webmail integration – Yahoo! Mail and Gmail are now supported services in Flock. We've consistently heard from you, our community of users, that webmail would be a great addition to Flock, so here it is!
We all spend a considerable amount of time using email these days, and yet we rarely think of email as being a social application. When you consider the amount of personal emails you send that include links, photos and videos, you’ll quickly understand why the addition of webmail was such a natural choice for Flock. You can now share almost anything in flock via your preferred Yahoo! or gmail webmail service, including photos, videos, rss feeds, and content within web pages. You also now have another reason to use Flock’s web clipboard. If you want to easily embed images in your webmail, just drag them to the Web Clipboard, open your mail compose page, and drag the image directly into the body of your mail. Voila!
Picasa Support – You can now upload photos directly to Picasa with Flock, and view photo streams with Flock’s Media Bar.
MyWorld is now yours to name and assemble. (We heard your feedback ;-)
Once you’ve added your friends from supported people services, you can keep tabs on their latest actions with the Friend Activity Feed. As you get Flock set up with your favorite social services (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr), your friends’ actions will automatically flow into MyWorld. Better yet, if you’d like to make an introduction, or share an action across services, simply drag a headline from your Friend Activity Feed to a friend in your people sidebar, and Flock makes the intro seamless and easy.
Now you can really see where the Flock vision is taking you:
We believe that you ought to be able to surround yourself with all of your favorite friends, sites, services and sources of wonderful content, no matter where you are on the web. All of these services should be readily accessible to you and work together with ease. As we continue to execute against this vision, you'll take great pleasure in the way that activity from all of your favorites on the web come to you. We're sure you'll wonder how you could go back to your old browser, when you could be using Flock.
Please let us know about your experience with this beta version of our product by using our Feedback form. We read every message you send us.
-Enjoy
Dan Burkhart
VP Marketing
dan at flock dot com
Blogged with the Flock Browser
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Am not at all pleased with my early adoption of Flock's 1.1 Beta version browser due to the fact that as I recall I saw something during the process that it would incorporate and replace the 1.07 (whatever) existing version of the Flock browser, etc. or so I thought; come to find out as I did everything I was prompted to do, that it does not keep all the many extensions I had downloaded on Flock, nor did it even keep all the many, many favorites or feeds I saved via Flock -- lost them all; thank you for wasting lots of time and a lot of valuable work and information, much of which I cannot recall and have to hope to stumble upon again. At the very least, please make sure to warn people that if they adopt the 1.1 beta version that such will happen both on the download information page and also during the download process prior to their actually accepting the next or final step. I should have heeded my gut screaming at me not to early adopt and now I regret it. Until this moment I had been happy with Flock, but not right now and this is a major understatement. I've just lost a lot of stuff and time at the very moment when I can least afford it. Thank you for nothing, especially given I cannot do anything about it!
Heh, if I could view my inboxes headers with a right click it would probably fill my 1600x1200 screens Y axis to the maximis.
Good thing I don't use gmail/yahoo mail (yet) ^_^
@ Morgan W. Brown
PLEASE! Don't ever use beta software without backing up. Also, a fundamental part of using Flock is to integrate with online sharing services like Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, and the tons of media sharing services available - why not take advantages of these and make your data portable? The Ma.gnolia bookmarks I use integrate beautifully with the search box in the upper-right corner of the browser, and I think they're doing a fantastic job.
I can't believe there was no PEBUAK situation here.
P.S. Do you work for Opera or something?
@Morgan: Sorry to hear that you had problems when testing the beta. Can you type "about:" into Flock's location bar, and report back the version number that is included on the page? It'll say something like "version 1.1b" or "version 1.1c."
If you find that you are using version 1.1b, then you are in luck -- this version did not actually use your existing profile, but rather created a new profile in case the beta code caused problems. Your solution is to uninstall the Flock 1.1 beta and reinstall the older version linked from www.flock.com, which will find your existing profile with your extensions and favorites/feeds.
I hear you on losing data that you can't get back -- when using an older version, prior to Flock 1.0, I saved some interesting news feeds that I have not been able to get back. As Ryan alluded too, data loss is possible if you choose to test products prior to their official, stable launch, when the problems should be worked out. If you're not happy with this, then stick with the public releases.
If you continue to have trouble, post in the support forums and hopefully someone who works for Flock will be able to assist you in getting back your extensions and information.
Note: The public preview of 1.1, at http://www.flock.com/beta/download/, does not use your existing profile, as indicated on that page: "This is a BETA version of Flock 1.1, and will not use your browser profile from any previous version of Flock. This is a clean install. This means that when you install this build, you will not have your previous Flock favorites, feeds, or personal info. This info is not deleted, it's simply not accessed.
The commercial version of Flock 1.1 will return to using your normal Flock profile. In other words, once Flock 1.1 is commercially released, your original Flock favorites, feeds, and personal info will return."
It's PEBKAC (problem exists between keyboard and chair) :-)
Thoughts on the actual beta: I'm enjoying the friend updates, and find the email integration relatively useful.
@Morgan: ChrisVance has it exactly right, if you are using the public beta announced in this blog post, we are simply creating a new profile folder. Your 1.0.7 info is still intact, and the commercial launch of 1.1 will use that information.
@TerryP: Not sure I understand. :)
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
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blog.evanhamilton.com
Please add more social networking sites in the Flock browser
I just love the integration of various services in flock and now yahoo, gmail and picasa integration just makes Flock my favorite browser 1 more time.
I use Flock basically for uploading loads of Pics. its Photo uploader tool is just amazing.
Some Of the services that i use and would Love to have in flock are
1. orkut
2. myspace
3. Hi5
4. Friendster
5. jaiku
6. Grandcentral
Hope This all is considred.
They are the websites which have millions of users and I am sure people will love it
Thanks in advance
Great to see the gmail integration. Any plans to support Google Apps For Your Domain?
Hi, if you are in Mac, simply trash or rename the beta and re-install the 1.0.9
Then, launch the 1.0.9 and... voila! All your contents come back! Now you can use the beta for testing and the stable 1.0.9 for browsing
Hi, was wondering, are there any plans to support other webmail services? Is it possible to have a webmail equivalent of the "self hosted blog" option? Thanks for a great browser!
I'm adding to the call for a generic webmail option, with Liam G-H. The webmail feature would've been much more versatile if the 'Custom' or 'Self-Hosted' option was available.
Hmm.. few moments of fear ....
I've installed the beta (the webmail looked promising enough to do that) - I backed up feeds and favorites. I chose to install it on c:\program files\flock11 directory, as i'm used with other betas, hoping to leave the stable 1.0 version installation un touched and to be able to test the new beta as well as use the stable version for the day-to-day work.
BUT... the installation, although done to \Flock11 folder, wiped the \Flock directory completely .grrrr.. it took me few minutes to find the profiles and to see that there is actually two profiles, so my extensions data etc. wasnt really erased, but this leaves me with no stable version. I'll remove the beta, and re-install 1.0 - you just lost a beta tester, since I can't efford relaying just on beta product.
It might be a good idea, towards the next beta, to "reconsider" your installation strategy.
BTW - you talk about gmail integrations, that's really nice but some remarks:
1. Google Apps - is a must! as for now, since I use my domains - webmail is useless for me.
2. Several accounts - Have a look at the gmail manager extension for FF - i'm using several emails, diff. domains hosted in gmail - i'd love to have them all - otherwise, i'm i'll be using the gmail manager extension with no need to the webmail support.
3. Which other webmail providers you plan to support? (AOL,Live.com etc.)
it seems as though Flock 1.1 is not actually checking my email accounts as often as I'd like (it says, "last checked 39 minutes ago). It doesn't alert me to new messages, yet when I checked gmail I did indeed have a message. Is there a setting that I can adjust? (I'm on a mac).
Actually my feeds aren't updating either...
@Ryan Price: "Do you work for Opera or something?"
You are funny! :D
@Hardeep: We're always adding new services and I appreciate you listing what you're interested in. I will log your votes. FYI, we've already started integrating MySpace (using their new developer platform) and you should see that integration later this year.
@Liam and Allan: Is there some sort of standard self-hosted webmail API? Just like with self-hosted blogs, we can only support them via API's that are available, not just support any webmail. I know that Gmail's API is used a lot, is there anything else?
@naor: I will look into this, but I think the answer is that it's not worth the level of effort to modify our installer for a beta. We are very careful not to wipe your data, but most people don't run the beta and the full version at the same time. Still, I'll look to see if there is another solution.
@Mygdala: The Webmail feature should be checking every 10 minutes or so...sounds like you have a bug. Would you mind emailing me at evan at flock dot com?
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
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blog.evanhamilton.com
I think Flock is great and so far loving the new version. I have to upload to photobucket alot and cut and paste URL and embed links so this has made a great difference.
Great to have Gmail integrated to. Do you have any plans to integrate Gmail Calendar.
Also do you have a mobile phone version of phone on the cards.
@evan hamilton I don't know of an API as such, but was thinking you could link to the email account through IMAP and then have an entry for the webmail URL in the Flock config? Even if it just illuminated the webmail icon and gave you the title of the new email that would be really handly.
I've been having the same issues regarding Gmail checking my account. It checks Yahoo at regular intervals but never checks GMail after account setup. I'm on a Mac also. I'll file a bug report.
Hey, since others have requested features, how about integration with FriendFeed? :)
I just download the beta version of Flock 1.1 and I am impressed that the picasa and web mail are integrated for easy use -should I have picasa to upload pics I have on my computer or is there a workaround. I am not so happy about my previous setting from 1.0 not being included but I understand that is the beta way -lucky I only have a few settings in the previous version I am going to stick with this until things get better -when do you anticipate anther stable version.?
@annabel spore: Glad you're enjoying it. No plans to integrate Gmail Calendar at this time...what sort of integration are you envisioning?
@Liam: I will definitely put it on my feature request list and we'll look at it for the future.
@Christopher Black: Please email me at evan at flock dot com...we're working on hunting this down.
@Kirk Fontaine: Luckily the 1.1 general release will use your old 1.0 profile information (and not the stuff you add in the beta). We may fix some bugs and push out an update to the 1.1 beta users, but unless we find anything huge the general release should be in the next month or so.
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
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blog.evanhamilton.com
Mac beta download gives the following error:
"Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /pub/flock/milestone/grackle/1.1d/flock-1.1d.en-US.mac.dmg on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat) Server at www.gtlib.gatech.edu Port 80"
Hey Matt,
We haven't been able to reproduce that...are you still having the issue?
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
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blog.evanhamilton.com
Any performance news? It's awfully slow every time I load a Flickr page. I have Greasemonkey installed, but I also have it on Firefox with the same scripts and it's not as slow.
Also, would be nice if we could entirely disable a few of the integration stuff. I barely use Flickr integration except for the comments update, but that I can get with RSS. Or am I missing something already available?
PS: Boo to require a fully qualified url here in this comments field ;-)
Hey Vieira,
We've done a lot of work to improve performance in the past year, and most people are experiencing a significantly better performance than 0.7 and 0.9. Are you using a profile that has migrated between different versions of Flock? If so, you may want to try temporarily using a fresh profile (back up your existing one first) and seeing if things run faster.
As for disabling integration, we will be looking at this in more depth in the coming months. I'll let you know when I have more news.
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
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blog.evanhamilton.com
Like the new features, but I can't use the email function with my email account that uses gmail as a backbone through google apps. Example: https://mail.google.com/a/websitename.com/
Too bad. I would love to get rid of the Gmail checker extension.
Flock does not detect my Gmail account. I tried Yahoo, which works fine, but as I use Gmail there is de facto no Flock webmail for me :( Tried both the US and localised versions of Gmail.
@Mike Flacy: A few folks have mentioned this. I have added it to the feature request list, and we'll definitely look into it. That said, you won't see it in 1.1.
@stagger82: Do you happen to have an @googlemail.com address?
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
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blog.evanhamilton.com
Really like the new beta, everything seems to be working for me except mag.nolia (unavailable as usual).
I would have liked to see email as a people tab with the last email header(s) as their status. I know that Gmail has contact pictures that could be used and the conversation idea would allow you to list the latest or most recently updated conversation. I know that some people have really long email subjects, but then they already often have long facebook statuses and that seems to work ok.
It would also be cool to be able to link contacts/people - i.e. i have friends with facebook accounts and with media, could these be linked? If they could then I would like to be able to see recent email headers/status updates etc for each person once in My World. The new version seems simply to list every update individually with the same person listed multiple times (if for example they have changed their status multiple times).
Hope this feedback helps... keep up the good work.
Oh my!!
I love Flock beta!!
Runs so nicely on my Vista machine!!
Thank you developers!!
Be well, my friends.............
Mike
Niskayuna,N.Y.
Is there a way to make flock "portable"? I've grown to absolutely LOVE having Firefox on my USB stick since I can make sure I then have the same extensions, bookmarks, etc on every machine I use.
I just installed Flock 1.0 and it's very cool & faster! Nevertheless, I now read It have been released Beta 1.1. I try it and tell you my new comment.
@James: We definitely thought about having webmail in People, but we decided it was not the right place (we'll see if the toolbar location feels like the right place to people); while you do have people in your contact list on webmail, the focus is the actual mail. Flock's People sidebar is not an item displayer, so we weren't going to display new emails there. The toolbar made the most sense to us. Thanks for voicing your feelings though; we will listen to the response and it's entirely possible webmail could change.
Eventually we definitely want to link people across services...it's not going to be right away, but it's on the eventual roadmap.
@Mike: Thanks!
@Ewan: We're built off of the Firefox architecture, so we're limited when it comes to portability. That said, someone does have a portable Flock posted on our forums: just do a search for "portable flock".
@Ha: You rock, thanks. :)
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
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blog.evanhamilton.com
i was about to get ready to download and test out the 1.1 and though i have nothing to worry about as far as accessing my old profile i can't say i'd be in the mood to redo the few things i just added to my new browser. (old pc broke down last week...pain. lol) i can definitely understand the reasons for not using someone's profile to test out a beta... great work as usual! :)
as far as social networking sites go, i know it's not a big one but how can we petition for a site? i game on xbox live and use www.gamertagpics.com. it's my number one site over any other on the web and i'd love to be able to fully integrate that with my flock. i know you guys use the popular ones, but what about giving users the ability to add their own social networking site to their individual browsers???? (wow...i like that idea. if only!!! LOL!)
Wow! I love this version of Flock! It's much better than firefox and adblock plus works under it! thx and keep on the good work!
Evan said:
>> @Ewan: We're built off of the Firefox architecture, so we're limited when it comes to portability. That said, someone does have a portable Flock posted on our forums: just do a search for "portable flock".<<
That version no longer works according to it's homepage. Further, since there is the PortableApps version of Firefox out there based off of just configuring things "properly" it would seem like y'all might be able to work with them to make Flock portable.
Just my .02 worth,
Ewan
@Maharetm: I will log your vote for gamertagpics.com...it's certainly a possibility, but like you said, it's not one of the bigger sites so it will be lowero n the list.
@Ksawery: Thanks!
@Ewan: Creating and maintaining a mobile/portable version of Flock is a serious undertaking, and we're unlikely to do it in the short term. It's definitely something we'd be interested in at some point, but at that point in time we'll undertake it as a real project and give it the time and attention it deserves.
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
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blog.evanhamilton.com
I just downloaded the BETA version and I am sold. It's especially GREAT for my Flickr account and blogging on Blogger. I LOVE IT! I have not used IE for years and am seriously considering not using Firefox any longer!!! I'm sold. (But I did just download it and may run into problems...but not so far!!!!)
Great beta, the mail application works great. Please release soon so I can get back all my links, feeds etc.
The blogger ap doesn´t work on my blog (bligoo.com). Everything else is looking good. No bugs so far.
Hey folks, great browser! I fell in love with version 1.0 when I first downloaded it a couple of months ago.
I didn't hesitate to download the beta either despite the (temporary) add-on loss etc. I think you should have a second look at the mail application because especially my gmail account is not working the way it's probably supposed to be. Flock first recognized it after at least 3 days and hundreds of log-ins and -outs and now it doesn't really want to check regularly even though I click the "Check Now" button.
Other suggestions I had on mind were a customizable time setting for the feed reader updates and more settings for the mail application and feed reader in general.
As soon as I stumble upon other bugs I'll let you know.
I really appreciate your work on this unique browser which combines all the things I use most of the time. Please don't stop doing such a great job.
I'm working now, but I'll give it a try when I get back home later. However, I wanted to ask about improvements on CSS compatibility. Does this Beta pass the Acid2 test, for example? I suppose you've been working on that too, but I am a little bit disappointed after noting there's no mention of anything related to standards improvement in your announcement.
Thanks!
That was me :)
I'd love to see Flock start up faster. I often have to wait a few minutes from when I click the Flock icon until when I can actually use the browser. As much as I like using Flock, it's sad that IE starts up much, much faster.
I really, really want some compatibility with Social Music Services specially Last.fm, iLike and Finetune!!
Hey guys, I wanted to just tell you all that today is my first day of using Flock (and of hearing of it). I love it and I really don't have any complaints. It's now replacing my Firefox. The only thing that SORT OF bugs me is that there's a loading bar for it.
Other than that, I love it and you guys did such a good job. I don't think people said that enough in these comments.
Will Flock be adding support for Hotmail? Seems only natural if you have gmail and yahoo mail integration.
thanks,
Rob
Robgd2: I've got a feeling that Hotmail won't integrate in Flock very soon since Hotmail doesn't have open API.
@Beckie: Thanks for the kind words!
@Mariano: It's coming soon! :) Feel free to submit your Blogger issue to our feedback form.
@kafkaki: We've made a lot of fixes to Webmail since the public beta, so please let me know if it occurs in the general release. We're definitely looking into customizable refresh times for our features in the future, and the first will probably be Webmail.
@Jano: We're built off of the Firefox2 engine, and we will be absorbing the Firefox3 changes. We don't really make changes to rendering, so that's more in Mozilla's court.
@David: We're always trying to improve Flock's performance, but we are certainly loading more great features than IE.
@Pablo: I'll log your votes for those services.
@Sarah: Thanks!
@AtteL: You got it. :)
Evan Hamilton
Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
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blog.evanhamilton.com
This is a BETA, you should know the risk
what does the 1.1d mean?
yes i double checked, d