Flock is dead • Hacker News Board

Re: Flock is dead

#41

Post by android2 » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 1:16 AM UTC

Androsynth wrote: post #17

golgo13 wrote: post #6

No love for Opera, Flock people?

Zynga is a web development company. They have no love for browser fragmentation; it means multiple environments they have to develop and test for.

Ahem."use the new zyngaweb browser and earn an extra 20% Frontierville dollars." I think Zynga could induce serious (double digit) uptake onto their own browser. Once they have this kernel of user installations, where could they go next?

Re: Flock is dead

#42

Post by Androsynth » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 1:20 AM UTC

android2 wrote: post #41

Androsynth wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zynga is a web development company. They have no love for browser fragmentation; it means multiple environments they have to develop and test for.

Ahem."use the new zyngaweb browser and earn an extra 20% Frontierville dollars." I think Zynga could induce serious (double digit) uptake onto their own browser. Once they have this kernel of user installations, where could they go next?

thats true for flock, but i was replying to the Opera comment.

Re: Flock is dead

#43

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 1:46 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #28

vonsydov wrote: post #26

Working on the mozilla source code....worst decision ever. They made chrome from scratch and its already got large number of users without any special feature.

Sure, but that was Google. If some random, unknown company made a browser just as good as Chrome, it wouldn't have gotten a tenth the users Chrome has now.

Precisely. Chrome got advertised on the Google.com homepage. You can't buy an ad that effective, anywhere.

Re: Flock is dead

#44

Post by garagebander » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 1:57 AM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #3

"The Flock team joined Zynga in January, 2011 and is now working to assist Zynga in achieving their goal of building the most fun, social games available to anyone, anytime -- on any platform."

No exceptions!

Re: Flock is dead

#45

Post by jawee » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 2:53 AM UTC

vonsydov wrote: post #26

Working on the mozilla source code....worst decision ever. They made chrome from scratch and its already got large number of users without any special feature.

I would say Mozilla/Gecko was a very good choice when the project started. Webkit itself was just being open-sourced at the time and cross platform compatibility was lacking.

Re: Flock is dead

#46

Post by akkartik » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 3:04 AM UTC

cageface wrote: post #22

Sorry to hear this, but I think that the customized browser is basically DOA. It's hard enough to get people to update their main browser as it is. Better to build whatever you have in mind within a conventional browser.

Joel Spolsky pithily summarized the argument: http://akkartik.name/blog/12342736

Re: Flock is dead

#47

Post by 1337p337 » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 3:08 AM UTC

flyosity wrote: post #32

Uhhrrr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it proves Flock _didn't_ solve a pain-point. I still would like a tool that manages all my social crap nicely.

For normal people there's already a tool that does that: Facebook.com. Facebook is the Internet for a huge % of Internet users. I don't even think there is a pain-point.

There certainly are a few (at least) pain points with Facebook, even for "normal" users. Spam, for one. Something that makes it a little more accessible could take off, but a competing browser may not solve the pain points.

Re: Flock is dead

#48

Post by brianbreslin » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 3:11 AM UTC

tmitchell wrote: post #37

brianbreslin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well if its got a deal with google similar to mozilla's it can make a good chunk of change with commissions on searches. mozilla generates well over $100M/year from google deal.

This figure appeared absurdly high to me on first glance, but Wikipedia says Mozilla earned $61.5M from search royalties in 2006. Total revenues were $104.3M in 2009, putting the estimated amount from search at around ~$90M. I don't know that that's necessarily all Google, but still an impressive sum.

I'd assume vast majority is from goog.

Re: Flock is dead

#49

Post by generalk » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 3:26 AM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #23

ryanglasgow wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad. It proves RockMelt doesn't solve a pain-point.

Well, it proves Flock _didn't_ solve a pain-point. I still would like a tool that manages all my social crap nicely.

In all seriousness, what would that tool do? There may be a market for an app that will allow you to consume/manage your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc, from one central location.

Re: Flock is dead

#50

Post by Uhhrrr » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 4:06 AM UTC

generalk wrote: post #49

Uhhrrr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it proves Flock _didn't_ solve a pain-point. I still would like a tool that manages all my social crap nicely.

In all seriousness, what would that tool do? There may be a market for an app that will allow you to consume/manage your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc, from one central location.

OK. In all seriousness, my personal preference is a tool that would a)let me tag every connection, feed, and post arbitrarily, b)display the most common connections/posts/tags/posts-from-connection-tagged-x easily, c) let me specify tag groupings via drag-and-drop and command-line regex, d) handle all logins without jacking my privacy.

I'll pay you zero dollars for it, but I'll let you show me relevant ads on alternate Thursday. You in?