Flock - A Versatile Social Web Browser.

Everyone is familiar with web browsers like the ever-present Internet Explorer, popular FireFox and others like Safari and Opera but here is a little known, but fast gaining in popularity browser called Flock.

Called a "Social Browser" by its creators, due to its ability to interact and share content with popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and various blogging and news aggregation services, Flock is a web browser based on fast, secure and open-source Mozilla technologies.

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Even though Flock was actually released about two years ago, the latest version is decisively different and increasingly relevant, considering the heavy social bent that is evident in today"s Web. Flock makes it very easy to share content, publish to your blogs and connect with your friends at the same time. Here are some of the cool features that makes Flock a strikingly different browser from Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari :

1. YouTube, Flickr and Photobucket Integration.
With the in-built Photo Uploader, you can edit and upload up to 1,000 photos at any one time to Flickr and Photobucket and through the Media Minibar, instantly find, stream and view photos and videos from YouTube, Photobucket and Flickr, and also get informed when your friends post new media content. Built-in quick links allows you to embed images in blogs and bookmark content streams that you like so that you can return to them in the Media MiniBar without having to go to Flickr.

2. Facebook Integration.
For fans of Facebook, Flock's superb integration features with the popular social networking site allows you to keep tabs on your Facebook life without ever having to go to Facebook. A left sidebar list all your Facebook friends, allows you to browse their photos, your invites, messages and other Facebook stuff. Updated profiles and any change in information from your friends can be easily seen at a glance.

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3. Superior Bookmarking Feature.
Flock's Favorites, with the ability to add tags and descriptions, has to be the best bookmarking feature among all the browsers. In addition to being able to save offline, it has a built-in ability to
save your favorite sites to ma.gnolia. or Del.icio.us, enabling you to access them from any browser on any PC. The favorites manager also comes integrated with a favorites and history section.


4. Flock's My World.
Keep up-to-date when your friends post new photos and videos or content from your favorite sites with Flock's custom homepage, "My World". It comes with a Yahoo search box and allows quick access to all the favorite sites you have visited recently together with your favorite feeds.

5. Easy Blog Publishing.
Flock's Blog Editor makes blog publishing easy. Draft online or offline or drag items from the Web Clipboard to put them in your posts and post them directly to blogs on Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Wordpress and many other blogging platforms.

6. Web clipboard.
This feature allows you grab your favorite images, text and links from the Web and save them in the sidebar for later use.

Besides the nifty features, most Firefox extensions like Google Toolbar and Greasemonkey work well in Flock and it is available for Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems. It is truly a social browser and essential for those who participate in multiple social networks.

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7 Free And Boss-Pleasing Things You Can Do With Facebook.

Bosses hate Facebook as they consider it a robber of productivity and worker hours. A recent study of 3,500 companies by UK employment law firm Peninsula found that an estimated 233 million hours were lost every month as a result of employees "wasting time" on networking sites such as Facebook. Many companies and even governments have already banned the site, for example the Ontario government in Canada.

However, with the right applications and used correctly, Facebook can actually help improve productivity at work. Here are seven free and boss-pleasing things you can do with Facebook :

1. Sell Your Company's Goods Online
Great for small companies who want to move their products online, the Marketplace section is where all Facebook users post items they want to buy or sell. Unlike eBay, listings are free but the listing will be available only to others in the same network in Facebook as you. But by paying US$1, you can publicise your listing to other Facebook users, in the form of online advertisements on their Facebook pages. (marketplace.jpg)

2. Raise Capital For Business
If you are residing in the United States, raise capital by joining the Lending Club, a community where you can borrow and lend money to fellow Facebook members. Members lend and borrow money directly to and from each other online, bypassing the banks and enjoying better rates. All members' identities and bank accounts are verified and borrowers credit-checked by the Lending Club. Lenders are also provided with a borrower's credit history and only borrowers with credit scores of above 640 are accepted. To-date, the Club has already passed US$3.7 million in loans to Facebook users. Great alternative fund raising avenue for companies intending to set up office in the US. (lendingclub.jpg)

3. Track The Stock Market
If your job or company dabble in stocks and shares, get real and updated stock quotes with the Simple Stock Quotes application which is updated every 15 minutes. (stock.jpg)

4. Read the Latest News
Get the latest news relevant to your business with the Simply feed application which allows you to read the latest happenings in your industry on Facebook. You can also share your feeds and shared items in Google Reader with friends. (rss.jpg)

5. Store And Share Office Documents
If you use the online office suite Zoho to create and edit office documents and spreadsheets, you can upload and share them with colleagues on Facebook using Zoho Facebook. (zoho.jpg)

6. Send And Get e-mail
Facebook's e-mail application lets you send and receive e-mail within the networking site. Choose your own e-mail address, and if the recipient replies through the web-form provided in the link in the e-mail, his reply will be displayed as a thread. (e-mail.jpg)

7. Make a Statement
With the Groups function, rally the troops to stand behind your boss vision and business direction or make a statement to meet your company's key targets for the year.

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Tech News - Members Blast Facebook.

Ever since i started a new category on technological news to keep up with the rapid changes in the Web, traffic had bumped up and it seems to be well received by readers. So, here is this week's update on the latest tech news :

1. Members Blast Facebook
Users of Facebook are up in arms over the social networking site's decision to make money from its success by plastering users' photos on advertisements for products that they like. Discussion groups have sprung up lambasting the company for selling out its users to the highest bidders, like Coca-Cola, Sony and Blockbuster.

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The site, started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg as a way to keep in touch with his classmates, has exploded into a global social networking phenomenon with more than 54 million users. The 23-year-old is now trying to turn those users into dollars and had sold a 1.6 per cent stake to Microsoft for US$240 million, valuing the site at a staggering US$15 billion.

His latest "social advertising" strategy will turn its users unwittingly into cyber ambassadors for commercial brands. The new strategy will allow businesses to build custom-designed "pages" and users can become "fans" of a company's page which means any interaction with that brand will be broadcast to their Facebook friends. Users are upset because they know about the site's plans via a very brief blog posting only when they logged in.

Privacy experts says what Facebook is doing amounted to massive invasion of privacy with some indicating that users can sue Facebook for damages if their photos are being used for advertising purposes without their consent. My take is that Facebook is cashing in on its popularity with minimum consideration for users who have made it the success it is today. It has also broken the illusion that online activities are not being monitored and might just face a rebellion from users.

2. Twine
The buzz words today are "Google it" and "Facebook me" but in future you might say "Twine it". Twine is a new online service that promises to automatically collect and organise all your information, like contacts, e-mail and even YouTube videos in a way that makes sense.

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Using Semantic Web - Web 3.0 technologies, Twine is now in a closed beta trial now and promises to manage your personal data better than say, Facebook does now. These technologies have the ability to sieve through all the information, sort out the relationships between them and then display it in a manner useful to you, all without your intervention.

As an example, Facebook currently reminds you of birthdays and hooked you up with people of the same interests but Twine promises to be smarter, for example, it can tell the difference between J.P.Morgan the person and J.P. Morgan the firm. Being one of the first to launch a commercial application using Web 3.0 technologies, watch out for the name "Twine".

3. Amazon e-Book Reader
Online book retailer Amazon has recently launched its own electronic book reader called Kindle. The paperback-sized device can stored up to 200 books and sells for US$399. Kindle comes with a 6-inch black-and-white display with a memory of 256 MB that allows users to download e-books onto it. At present, more than 90,000 titles including bestsellers are available for Kindle.

With its steep price, the reception for Kindle might be luke-warm as it has only one function - reading and does not allow for surfing the Web or organising your address book like a personal digital assistant, which can be brought for about the same price. And most PDAs can already download and read electronic books. Kindle also lack international appeal as it currently supports the EVDO wireless broadband network which is available only in America which means all transactions must be done within the United States.

There are also issues with users comfort and avid readers like me, would prefer the touch and feel of a book when i read and e-readers are at best, cold comfort.

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4. Spidey Climbs Onto The Web
Here is something for fans of Marvel Comics. In a major move to go digital, Marvel Comics is putting up Spiderman and Captain Planet comics on the Web, with back issues of popular comics like X-Men and Fantastic Four slated to go online soon.

Subscribers can access Marvel's library from the comfort of their homes and using a Flash player, read the comics on their PC screens. The service is expected to cost about US$9.99 per month but new comics, however, will only be available 6 months after they hit the shops and fans can only read them, not download them. Their rival, DC Comics, already has Batman and Superman online.

Just like what is happening in the music industry, it is inevitable that comics move from paper to the digital realm and will be appealing to a whole new generation of wired-up kids who do everything online. A bit of romance is loss though for the many fans who grew up collecting rare copies and storing them in acid-proof containers for posterity.

5. Eye For A Spy
Recruitment of spies has just enter cyberspace with British intelligence service, GCHQ, the high-tech surveillance arm, saying it will embed job ads within video games in a bid to attract Internet-savy graduates. Ads like "Careers in British Intelligence" will be place in games like Enemy Territory and Splinter Cell Double Agent and will be fed to computers and Microsoft Xbox consoles connected to the Internet. Guess what? The advertising agency responsible for the ads is New York-based Massive, which was brought over by Microsoft last year.

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