A little while back, I took some time to give you a review of the recently released public beta of Flock. One thing I noticed about Flock 1.0 as well as previous versions was that they are packed with features. Whether you don’t know about them, or you just don’t know how to use them, I am going to take some more time to tell you how you can make the most out of Flock’s best features.

Flock is a great browser. What I once blew off as a joke browser is now my primary. I remember playing around with Flock around the time they released their first version and even then, I thought it was feature packed. My problem was that I did not want to get to know another browser. Call it laziness I guess, but I was just comfortable with FireFox so I quickly removed it not really giving it a chance. I am here to tell you not make the same mistake I did and to take a look at Flock feature number 1:

How to: Set up Accounts

Once installed, Flock will want to make itself your primary browser. I usually hold off on doing that until I get to know the browser a little better so I recommend you holding off on making it the default until you make your decision. The first thing I did was connect it to my social networking account – Facebook. MySpace is another one so to do this; you will have to introduce yourself to the sidebar menu, which is where you will find nine neat icons. You will find links split up into four sections for people, media sharing, blogging, and social bookmarking. Clicking each of the links will take you to the site or service. If you are registered to any, simply type in your login information and Flock will do the rest.

How to: Use The People Button

The most useful feature you’re likely to end up using, and what really makes Flock fun, is the people button. Clicking it will pull up all your personal contacts from Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter. I have a Facebook account, so I simply typed in my information and all my friends magically appeared with updated information. What is cool is that you can do many of the features you do on the site. For example, if I wanted to message my friend Matt, all I would have to do is click the “Actions” button and “Message” is one of the options.

How to: View Media and Add RSS Feeds

Another cool feature is the media bar at the top. It is a simple toolbar that you can toggle with the photo button that is just to the right of the people button in Flock’s menu controls. The mini-bar shows photo and video thumbnails from any services in which you are connected, and lets you browse entire photo albums without visiting the site. The service connects with streams from Flickr, Photobucket, and Facebook for photos, along with YouTube and AOL’s video service for video clips. If you are visiting a site with a media stream, the little camera button in the address bar will light up. You simply click it and the mini bar magically appears.

Now I was not a big fan of RSS feeds. I simply visited the site to get what I wanted. It wasn’t until recently that I used RSS a little more than I did. Flock makes it very simple and very manageable on a page called “My World.” There are a few ways to add RSS feeds, by either hitting the RSS button while browsing a site and clicking the “subscribe” option on the top of the page, or importing a list of your feeds from another service.

How To: Sharing

If you’re a media creator, like myself, Flock’s got a built-in photo uploader that will take photos from your computer’s hard drive, and post them to Facebook, Flickr, and Piczo. To get started, just hit the up arrow, which you will find on the right side of Flock’s menu controls, and a screen will appear where you can drag and drop your photos. Each service you use has different rules and settings for tags and groupings, so pay attention.

How To: Use Blogging Feature

If you’re a blogger, Flock has a built-in blogging tool. It works with several popular services including Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal and Typepad. Here at The Tech Brief, we use Wrodpress, and it works like a charm. You can drag pictures over from the media bar, or your clipboard and pretty much do what you’ll find in any 3^rd party blogging tool. Right clicking a photo, link, or selection of text will bring up the “blog this” option for easy blogging.

To set up your blog for posting, just click on blog icon that’s to the left of the photo uploader icon. Then click on “tools” then “configure blog accounts.” Either pick out a supported service, or choose the “I host my blog” option, followed by the URL and your user login. Pretty simple!

Hot to: Add Extensions

Flock is based on the same underlying code as Firefox, and basic features work the same, so if you’re a Firefox user you’ll feel right at home. I’ve noticed that you are able to use some the same extension that FireFox uses, so that is very nice. Flock also has its own listing of extensions. Flock’s directory of extensions mainly focuses on blogging tools, social networks, and widgets.

The new Flock is an impressive piece of work. I can only imagine the software improving in the future and there is no telling what the future holds for this great browser. Download it. Try it out. Get your feet wet and you will probably stumble into features you will absolutely love, because they are so many more. And it is free, so what are you waiting for?

Flock 1.0 – Features review from doncrowley on Vimeo.