Written on July 23, 2008 – 4:09 pm
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
Allen Stern over at Center Networks writes about the launch of Gloss, a custom edition of the Flock social web browser. The customized editions comes with pink flavors, a new set of badges with lipstick on them, and custom pre-filled content mainly around the topic of entertainment, gossip, celebrities and fashion.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, Flock Gloss is targeted primarily at women. Launch partners include Glam Media, Glamour, The Budget Fashionista, TMZ, Cosmo, DesignerApparel, PopSugar, iVillage and others.
I think these customized versions are an excellent way of introducing Flock to users who’ve never tried an alternative browser before. Previously, Flock created a German edition of the browser and an environment-friendly Eco edition. I’m looking forward to seeing what else they’ll come up with.
Last May, the company announced a new round of financing in the $15 million range.
On a personal note: I used to live Flock once but was repeatedly disappointed with the memory resources it consumes, the lack of speed, and regular crashes. It has led me to conclude that Flock may actually not be for internet power users, but rather for regular users who like to interact with each other socially on the web.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on July 3, 2008 – 4:34 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Our - really beloved sponsor - Wakoopa (the Last.fm of software) has launched some new widgets today. From now on, it’s possible to express yourself by showing off your software usage. To let people know you’re the Firefox-kinda-guy or a Flock-chick, you basically have three new - or improved - options.
- Badge - show your blog or social profile visitors your most popular, recently added or recently used software.
- Forum-like signature - show your fellow forum members what you’re doing beside commenting on endless discussion
- Card - small card, modeled after the famous Xfire ones, that shows your avatar and some software data, like the two most used programs (always your browser + something else)
These three types of widgets fascinate me. Apparently there are people out there who use their software data as a way to express themselves. Most boys and girls let their blog and profile visitors know who they are by showing the music they like (Last.fm) or the books they read (Amazon), yet now software enters the stage of self-expression. In a way, it makes sense. 30,000 geeky early adopters - like me - we’re already watching each others software usage within the safe surroundings of Wakoopa, so why not take it outside as well?
Moreover, just like you see fellas walking around with a shirt of their favorite band, some guys now also wear Firefox jackets or Linux hats. One thing I don’t see happening though, is a poster of your favorite app above your bed.
There’s a fourth widget too, with which developers can show much Wakoopa members use your program. Want to create your own Wakoopa widget? Here’s the API.
Written on June 24, 2008 – 11:52 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Yoono, often referred to as the French Flock, closed a round of funding, led by AGF Private Equity. The score? €2.6 million. The goals? Attracting more users and offering more widgets. Competition is tough, as Flock and Minggl in general terms offer the same service: a social browser experience. Here are the latest numbers on their battle:
Of course, the real deal is the number of downloads. According to Firefox add-ons Yoono has 13,885 weekly downloads (1,354,484 in total). There are numbers available about Flock and Minggle. But these traffic stats give an idea of Yoono’s challenge: take over Flock.
Yoono just got started, and when in private beta - Jason Kincaid from TechCrunch predicted that Yoono would success in its mission to become the most important social browser experience tool - as you don’t have to download a new browser (like Flock requires). A few weeks after that enthusiastic review, Yoono opened its gates to the public.
Yoono’s new sidebar has some new features like, filtering friends into groups, upload pictures and poke to Facebook, send Twitter messages, comment on Friendfeed, comment on Flickr pictures, browse Digg video, chat via Gtalk, and use MySpace.
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