Building a Better Browser
Bart from Flock was kind enough to comment on my last post, and now that we are engaged in very Web 2.0ish social software-driven discourse I decided I should play nice and not title this post “What the Flock?”, despite the almost irresistible temptation to do so.
I’m kidding, people.
Bart: I definitely agree with you that we should try to connect in person. We seem to be attacking the same problem, albeit from totally different angles, and it would be great to compare notes. I hate to be such a petulant geek, but I’m still unconvinced by the notion of packaging Flock as a browser, rather than an extension. I don’t question your sincerity with respect to not forking. But consider this: what if you build a browser with an awesome WYSIWYG editor and I build one with, say, facilities to manage and share media files? The immediate implication is that users have to choose between one or the other. I submit that this is exactly the problem that the Firefox extension mechanism is designed to solve.
There are other disadvantages to eschewing the extension route. For one thing, it’s a lot easier to convince users to install an extension, in my experience, since the perceived “cost of entry” is much lower. Your editor is great. I was really impressed by how painlessly it found my blog, downloaded my existing posts and provided me with a slick way to modify them and create new ones. I’m ready to bet a cholesterol-laden dinner in the Prague greasy spoon of your choice, however, that a) this functionality could be provided as an extension and b) someone is going to do so if you don’t. There’s a real risk of being outcompeted if this happens. I don’t see enough benefits in the soups-to-nuts browser approach to outweigh these considerations.
Anyway, my seething envy over all the advance publicity that Flock is getting has inspired me to say a bit more about what we’re actually doing here at AllPeers. Starting next week, I’ll be posting regularly about our vision and how we are going about achieving it. This is doubtless long overdue since the first Firefox-based version of AllPeers is scheduled for next month.
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I think the idea is that, over time, we’d like to strengthen the browser as a platform for integrating social services, and try to do even better then the current Firefox extensions story. Let’s plan on chatting sometime over the next few weeks, since I’m sure there are ways we can and should work together. Can you send mail to bart at flock dot com?
Comment by bart — 9/20/2005 @ 7:07 am
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Pingback by fredoland » More articles leading up to launch. — 9/24/2005 @ 4:53 pm