Flock to the Web 2.0 Refund Centre
I'm never one to knock a 'disruptive' browser play. Better than an Ajax Calendar service supported by Long Tail ads from someone elses adserver and customers. Im with Paul Kedrosky - What am I missing ? Useless irrelevant fact # 1 : I read that Desperate Housewives only plays 40 minutes of programming (down from an average of 44-47 minutes in previous years for comparative primetime free to air programming) On a sidenote - In "Lean Back" MSM (mixed metaphor incl a blogger acronym) disruption is knowing how many people go to the toilet for that 20 minutes per hour. Anyway, moving on Google's latest quarter 'disrupted' analyst predicted earnings by beating expectations by a handy $60M+ (useless fact #2) Which ironically is close to (metaphorically) to the guestimate of Google click-fraud (useless fact #3 - "Up to 38% of Google's revenue may be fraudulent, lawsuit claims" - f**dgoogle.com)
Back to Flock : when we launched ninemsn in Australia for msn, the IE4 browser delivered alot of 'default' traffic - which helped build what is still the dominant #1 Australian Portal. But the portal and related vertical services was the business, the browser wasnt - it was free traffic (so flock's real numbers are long term calculations - how many users / how many google toolbars downloaded / how many ads clicked on from other services / cpc/l/a/m's etc.) So I was very receptive to Flock (which when you think about it, is similar to how ninemsn as a joint venture used IE4 as a 'licensee' of the browser, but not the owner ie flock nor ninemsn can relicense the browser/recode the core engine etc...both can/could just add cosmetic changes to front end design/content settings/etc) So with flock, I had heard the meta-digested hype and educated naysayers.. but first - It's worth comparing search engine and browser switching/substitute costs (mike porter anyone - 2nd year undergrad) : Switching search engines is easy : enter another URL, trial it, increase the frequency, and over time stop using your default search engine as another becomes it : Yahoo became Alta-Vista, which led to (a trial of) Excite-Lycos, then you became a googler, swung a bit with Yahoo or MSN as secondary choices esp for portal matters, tried Technorati for the latest stuff esp to see if you were mentioned (as youd started blogging), downloaded bloglines/newsgator as your RSS reader, started usings delicious as a categorisation, tagging and discovery tool etc : Search + Discovery Leadership changes all the time. Browser leadership is a whole different game. My 'is this real disruption or not' question with flock is not whether it is an extension on Firefox, but will people really switch ? So far for web 2.0 users not visitin the garage of sleeping/working programmers - i would bet most are still using firefox, and take that proposition to the masses - Flock is too geeky, yet not geeky enough, and too geeky for mainstream users.. so who really is Flock's users ? The fact they dropped their own tagging service and went with del.icio.us at last minute is symptomatic of wanting it all, but not knowing who to get it from. (they should have gone after their parents not their friends) I mean will Flock really catchup to Firefox's 100m+ users, and then fight against Explorer in the way that made Bill Gates bet the company to beat Navigator. Heck, I'd be happy if it displaced Safari on my Mac, which is the blandest experience there is. But, on first run, I prefer Opera over Flock due to Opera's Bit-Torrent integrated capabilities (which btw I've only slightly got to work - flocks design also seems a rip-off of opera, anyone else think this or am i not sleeping enough ?) So when I actually started using flock today, I was sorta looking for the features and amazing experience I was told I would receive. Reminds me of Fred Wilsons post about users aggregating a range of web specialists vs one stop shop portal generalists - At the moment Ill keep open 2-3 tabs in firefox for flickr, blogger and my delicious bookmarklet than stay with flock (im going to play with it more see if im missing something, just as im doing with opera) The other thing I'd hope Flock do past 'consumer beta' is see if it could become something I could introduce my mom, brother etc to : Especially if it made their emailing with their kids, internet banking, searching, blogging, images , rss subscriptions, search watchlists, personalisation and tagging - understandable, useable and a one stop shop. Basically, they'd download the browser (which might come on a cheap PC they bought or a mac mini) and they could blog, post and tag straight away - then the service would personalise content, searches, and social networking recommendations (ie your mom wants to speak to you) At the moment for flock... obviously the mainstream isnt the target market. It should be. With all the players in blogging, rss, tagging etc.. it's interesting that there has been no startups focused on solving the problems of the middle and later internet majority - with a lower level of internet competence (i didnt say AOL's audience) Unfortunatly, I wont be flocking anytime soon or recommending, whatever the younger previously ebullient Web 2.0 think - as open minded and flexible as I have been the whole way.
Back to Flock : when we launched ninemsn in Australia for msn, the IE4 browser delivered alot of 'default' traffic - which helped build what is still the dominant #1 Australian Portal. But the portal and related vertical services was the business, the browser wasnt - it was free traffic (so flock's real numbers are long term calculations - how many users / how many google toolbars downloaded / how many ads clicked on from other services / cpc/l/a/m's etc.) So I was very receptive to Flock (which when you think about it, is similar to how ninemsn as a joint venture used IE4 as a 'licensee' of the browser, but not the owner ie flock nor ninemsn can relicense the browser/recode the core engine etc...both can/could just add cosmetic changes to front end design/content settings/etc) So with flock, I had heard the meta-digested hype and educated naysayers.. but first - It's worth comparing search engine and browser switching/substitute costs (mike porter anyone - 2nd year undergrad) : Switching search engines is easy : enter another URL, trial it, increase the frequency, and over time stop using your default search engine as another becomes it : Yahoo became Alta-Vista, which led to (a trial of) Excite-Lycos, then you became a googler, swung a bit with Yahoo or MSN as secondary choices esp for portal matters, tried Technorati for the latest stuff esp to see if you were mentioned (as youd started blogging), downloaded bloglines/newsgator as your RSS reader, started usings delicious as a categorisation, tagging and discovery tool etc : Search + Discovery Leadership changes all the time. Browser leadership is a whole different game. My 'is this real disruption or not' question with flock is not whether it is an extension on Firefox, but will people really switch ? So far for web 2.0 users not visitin the garage of sleeping/working programmers - i would bet most are still using firefox, and take that proposition to the masses - Flock is too geeky, yet not geeky enough, and too geeky for mainstream users.. so who really is Flock's users ? The fact they dropped their own tagging service and went with del.icio.us at last minute is symptomatic of wanting it all, but not knowing who to get it from. (they should have gone after their parents not their friends) I mean will Flock really catchup to Firefox's 100m+ users, and then fight against Explorer in the way that made Bill Gates bet the company to beat Navigator. Heck, I'd be happy if it displaced Safari on my Mac, which is the blandest experience there is. But, on first run, I prefer Opera over Flock due to Opera's Bit-Torrent integrated capabilities (which btw I've only slightly got to work - flocks design also seems a rip-off of opera, anyone else think this or am i not sleeping enough ?) So when I actually started using flock today, I was sorta looking for the features and amazing experience I was told I would receive. Reminds me of Fred Wilsons post about users aggregating a range of web specialists vs one stop shop portal generalists - At the moment Ill keep open 2-3 tabs in firefox for flickr, blogger and my delicious bookmarklet than stay with flock (im going to play with it more see if im missing something, just as im doing with opera) The other thing I'd hope Flock do past 'consumer beta' is see if it could become something I could introduce my mom, brother etc to : Especially if it made their emailing with their kids, internet banking, searching, blogging, images , rss subscriptions, search watchlists, personalisation and tagging - understandable, useable and a one stop shop. Basically, they'd download the browser (which might come on a cheap PC they bought or a mac mini) and they could blog, post and tag straight away - then the service would personalise content, searches, and social networking recommendations (ie your mom wants to speak to you) At the moment for flock... obviously the mainstream isnt the target market. It should be. With all the players in blogging, rss, tagging etc.. it's interesting that there has been no startups focused on solving the problems of the middle and later internet majority - with a lower level of internet competence (i didnt say AOL's audience) Unfortunatly, I wont be flocking anytime soon or recommending, whatever the younger previously ebullient Web 2.0 think - as open minded and flexible as I have been the whole way.
posted by redbarren at 8:48 PM
1 Comments:
Totally agree! I mean i'm sitting here looking at Flock and thinking "what da heck am i missing?" Haven't I seen this before?
I mean come on, disruptive! what a joke! It's slick yes, but nothing that jars my life into thinking this is the end-all be-all solution.
I'll stick with Firefox and even Opera before going to Flock.
Can you collectively say "Uninstall"?
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