In doing research for this post, I realized that both browsers mentioned are trying to include something similar to this (albeit far less functional) in their next major release. This makes me happy as I wasn’t expecting people to be telepathically wired to my brain, but so it goes.
I’ve just switched to Flock from Firefox. Flock works from the Firefox engine, so it’s not a huge change (it even accepts most Firefox extensions). What’s more, I can’t really recommend it for the casual Internet surfer. The extra features in Flock are really more geared for the blogger/photographer/feed reader sort of person: things a casual surfer would lose interest in rather quickly.
I like Flock because it makes getting to my feeds (and thus to everyone’s writing) a lot quicker and easier than I’ve ever seen elsewhere. I love feeds because they allow me to get in and out of the Internet without loading pages. As I’m in the Internet’s third world until Thursday (dial-up), this is a very important element to me.
What it doesn’t do, and what I have never seen anything do is check for updates on the other sites I visit relatively often (e.g. Myspace, Facebook, NaBloPoMo, Cre8buzz, etc.). I don’t enjoy going to social networking sites, so my presence there is purely symbolic. However, when people send me messages, I’d like to be able to respond posthaste. This creates a problem for me as I’d also like to avoid wasting time on these Web sites.
So, why isn’t there a Web 2.0 Feed?
Specifically, I’m thinking about a general hub that has all of your login information for the various sites you frequent. Then, whenever something of note occurs in one of them, it lets you know so you can respond. If someone developed such a Web site or browser or feed reader, they would get millions of subscribers or downloads almost instantly.
Surely I’m not the first person to suggest such a thing? Is there mechanical problems I know nothing about? I mean, okay, yeah, but still.
‘Get Flocked.’ Heh.
Also, re: “thinks” – is that a future-reading psychic proclamation? Because I don’t think I’ve thought so.
At least not yet.
Ooh, you’ve found the alt-text! I’ve been using it since I switched to WordPress 2.2 and I’d never thought anybody noticed!
Ha ha, brilliant!