Social Gathering
Flock
“Flock is designed to let social network addicts spend their entire day in a single browser window.”
According to Nielsen almost 25 percent of online time is now spent using social networks or blogs. For heavy social networkers—the people who are pushing the trend—that number is much higher. They're the ones frustrated by how many sites and applications they have to shift between to stay up to date. Flock is a Web browser designed to aggregate multiple social services together. The site was originally panned by tech experts who reported it was confusing and overwhelming for users. That’s why Flock turned to frog. We overhauled the company’s interface design to make it more intuitive.
Being online is now a flurry of activities, conversations, and distractions. Flock had the vision to organize and manage this blizzard in one browser. It enables users to toggle between Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and other social networks simultaneously. In a sidebar the browser constantly shows photos of friends who are online so that being online feels less solitary. The frog team wanted to extend that feeling into other functions such as search, content sharing, and media viewing.
Discovering how social is done
Social networking is a rapidly evolving area where user behaviors are poorly understood and in constant flux. We wanted to make sure the Flock browser really was meeting people’s needs, so a team of frogs spent time understanding online rituals. The goal was to uncover gaps in a user’s social networking experience. We found that many people cobbled together old and new Web technologies (browser, IM, "weblications," etc.) to personalize basic online functions such as searching, shopping, and communicating. The goal then became clear: Consolidate and integrate these tools and services in a simple and elegant design.
Flock takes flight
The final iteration of Flock 3.0 is now both exceedingly approachable and functional. It keeps individuals’ information synchronized across devices and keeps tailored content constantly at their fingertips. Best of all, Flock’s extended search is more efficient, media-rich, and contextually specific, allowing users to use all their favorite virtual spaces in one efficient package.
