Flock browser beefs up Twitter, Facebook support
Flock version 2.5, released on Tuesday by Redwood City, Calif.-based Flock, is designed to let social network addicts spend their entire day in a single browser window.
Flock, an enhanced version of the open-source Firefox browser, streams status updates from Twitter and Facebook in a sidebar that can be popped open or shut without shuffling windows around a computer screen.
The most impressive enhancement is drag-and-drop support for posting multimedia content to Facebook. The browser automatically handles… Continue Reading
Roundup: The White House and YouTube test an open relationship, the Dow plunges below 7,000, an iPod and iPhone-less Gates household and more
Here’s the latest action:
The White House and YouTube need to video message one another — A report this morning by CNET claimed the White House was ditching YouTube as a platform for President Obama’s weekly addresses and going with a different Flash-based solution from Akamai. The decision was said to be due to privacy concerns about information YouTube (which Google owns) tracks. But the whole thing is not true says a later report from the White… Continue Reading
Investors flock to Flock with a new $15 million round
Social web browser Flock has garnered a lot of hype since its release in 2005. It’s also won a lot of fans. Both likely played a role in its new $15 million fourth round of funding announced today. The round was led by Fidelity Ventures, with all previous lead investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures and Shasta Ventures, participating.
Impressively, this round of funding actually surpasses all of Flock’s previous rounds combined.
This money will be… Continue Reading
Minggl ports social networks into your browser
FriendFeed has garnered a lot of popularity within the tech community for its ability to aggregate information across a wide range of social networks, and layer a new conversation on top of that. Minggl is a new service attempting to do something similar, only via the browser rather than a web page.
I sat down with Minggl founder Dewey Gaedcke and marketing director Brian Buser to go over the service and have them show me what… Continue Reading
Roundup: Dash Navigation, Flock, Greenspan’s tell-all, and more
Here’s the latest action:
1) Dash Navigation opens platform
2) Flock releases new browser, with Facebook in sidebar
3) Patriots successfully sue ticket scalper, StubHub
4) Google’s great quarter: Net income up 46 percent
5) Brad Greenspan’s tell-all essay on MySpace
6) Microsoft releases Popfly, allowing non-geeks to build apps
7) Comcast steps away from Net Neutrality
Dash Navigation opens platform — Dash, you’ll recall is the cool GPS device that you can use in your car, and which will be constantly connected… Continue Reading
New companies, continued: MusicShake, Cake Financial, Ponoko, TripIt standout
Ten more companies presented during today’s afternoon portion of the Techcrunch40 conference. If we were able to have stock in these companies, here’s the order we’d rank them: MusicShake, Cake Financial, Tripit, Ponoko, Everywhere, CrowdSpirit, DocStoc, Flock, StoryBlender and TeachThePeople. Summaries of each company follow.
MusicShake, a music-creation app — This is site is winning kudos because it looks addictive. According to the logo on the webpage, it’s a “Music making game which is no need of… Continue Reading
Flock still trying to take flight
Flock announced its intention, over two years ago, of making the web browser more social — like a flock of penguins, it never got off the ground. Two years later, the Palo Alto, Calif. company has a bigger set of wings, a 9-month late version “0.9.”
Big questions remain, though, as to whether this will be enough.
The browser already gives people a way to save text and images of Web pages to a clipboard, save these… Continue Reading
Mozilla releases The Coop — social networking in your browser
The Coop is a new social networking feature by Mozilla, which will let users of its Firefox browser keep track of what their friends are doing online, and share content with them.
It will integrate with web services, using data feeds so that you can keep up your friends’ activities on various sites. This may hurt Flock, the browser company that was about to release a version with similar features (we saw a demo several… Continue Reading
Moritz’s favorites, Google in SF, nano fears, Flock, Pandora & more
Roundup of Silicon Valley news:
Google’s Larry and Sergey were more interested in technology than Yahoo founders — There’s a revealing 2000 interview with venture capitalist Michael Moritz posted by PodVentureZone, comparing Google’s co-founders and Yahoo’s. He was an investor and on the board of both, and says Larry and Sergey were closer “to the sheet metal, closer to the hardware.” He calls Sergey a “tough, little guy”:
I think Larry and Sergey have a much more pronounced… Continue Reading
MySpace founders shortchanged, Yahoo’s binge over, Timebridge, Mashery, FON, Workday
The round-up of crucial stuff in Silicon Valley:
Did MySpace’s Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson get shortchanged? — VentureBeat has heard that MySpace, the biggest success of the Web 2.0 wave so far, in terms of users, wasn’t such a great a hit for the co-founders. Word is, Chris DeWolfe ended up with a mere $5 million, even though the company was sold as part of Intermix for $580 million. We haven’t been able to confirm this… Continue Reading