I’ve been testing the Spawn of FireFox called “Flock“. Flock is basically Firefox dressed up for Social Media sites. if your the type of person who loves sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and others then this may be your dream browser! It is these types of sites that this browser is made for… This is not to say it is its only use though.

Flock has some nice features for bloggers. It has a cool feature-full writer for all the top blogging platforms. I never liked it much though, it just was not what i am used to. It would be great for people who use Blogger… But for wordpress users it will not offer everything you need. If you like me you have some plugins and some of these plugins might change a few things on the fly, of course this writer has none of things.

It does have some nice sharing features for sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. It also has a nice way of integrating the browser with Social sites, you can simply drag any content like a whole web-page or photo into a sidebar which has all your friends. It will then send the content to them and hopefuly they will check it out. Features like this is what really sets it apart from Firefox. It has a cool top menu which is great for quickly checking mail, RSS feeds, and your friends.

One feature that looks really cool is how you can search for media. This tool searches sites like Google and youtube for Videos and images. It then displays them in a nice top menu with imasges and other info.

The only thing I really use is Twitter and RSS feeds. The RSS reader is great, it is one of the only real features I used. I found the email checker a bit frustrating to use though

Flock also gives you your own home page. This homepage is hosted on your computer. It grabs your feeds and other content and displays it as a sort of MSN/AOL/iGoogle type page and gives you everything you need in one easy to use page.

Conclusion

Flock is simple not a browser that is built for me. It is made for the Facebook generation who love to share things and spend a lot of time chatting. For me I would only really use Twitter which I can find a better plug-in for FireFox ( TwitterFox).

Like twitter most of the features can be found in Plug-ins for FireFox. The only real selling point is the way Flock displays these plug-ins. It also has a nice Homepage which was nice to use… But it is not really anything you cant get for free from Google or Yahoo!.

For me I think I’ll stick with FireFox and Chrome. Maybe when I get all hip and start using all the social media sites that come and die I will switch… But don’t expect this for sometime

This is following my post of “What is blogging now” and now I’d like to talk about how real blogging can cause a lot of problems.

Many real bloggers blog about how their personal life is and generally rant about whatever is on their mind. I have seen some people lose jobs, lose loved ones, and ruin their lives through blogging.
This could be a risk that keeps bloggers going and a way to live on the edge… Or it could be their only real way of expressing themselves in their own way.

I know for a fact that my blogging has caused a lot of problems in my life… I still have not seen the brunt of it yet… But without it I really don’t think id be here today. It has been such a good way to get my emotions and built up anger out without really causing any immediate damage.

I hope one day a lot of the issues my blog has caused will one day turn around and my children will be able to see that I have been thinking of them and maybe my ex’s will be able to see that I am sorry for any problems I may have caused.

I also hope that if everything does turn to shit even worse than it is now, that maybe people will be able to read up on how things have gone. I have many posts that are not yet published , they are on scheduled posts in case this does happen. Hopefully they will never see the light of day. This is one big reason I have paid for 5 years of hosting and will soon backdate my .com for 10 years.

I am not a drinker, smoker, drug user, and I try my best to keep myself from acting out… I guess blogging and writing (no matter how good or bad I am at it)  is a new way for people like me to destress…. Well I hope so.

I hope that this is what blogging will be used for more and more… and we will get to see people change their lives and see them go through the life changing events…. Or just watch them show us their views and let us debate them.

This is one of the key selling points for any real blogger! You can watch them evolve and see how their lives change. It is sort of like a Reality TV show… but you really do get to see what these people think…

I know many bloggers who I talk to wish sometimes they never published their real name… I know I have wished this many time (And will lots more). Some have managed to do this and have become really famous for it (i.e. girl with a one track mind), but it can backfire as when you get the fame more and more people want to know the real you.

If you have had any bad effects from blogging let me know Id love to share all mine but I am sure id just cause lots more through sharing them.