I don’t know how Wizards of the Coast expects to comepte in a digital market using the same old books as a model for delivering content. Everythying ‘new’ they’ve tried up til now has been either half-hearted (as in the case of D&D 4th edition) or the ultimate in VaporWare (as with NeverWinter Nights, promising to be an online campaign delivery mechanism). And let us not forget those DM tools that were promised in 3rd edition, sourced out and played out to the max, the software title Temple of Elemental Evil which was riddled with errors, or the MMORPG which receieved lukewarm reviews at best.

From Ars Technica: Wizards of the Coast fails saving throw against pirates
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/04/wizards-of-the-coast-fails-saving-throw-against-pirates.ars

Flock Announces New Fashion and Entertainment

Edition of Award Winning Social Web Browser

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Flock (www.flock.com), the innovative social Web browser that helps its users connect, share and discover the best of the modern Web, today announced the availability of the Gloss Edition, the world’s first and only fashion and entertainment browser. The Gloss Edition is based on the latest version of the award winning Flock browser, and comes pre-populated with best of breed news, photos, videos and feeds from more than 35 fashion and entertainment content partners across the Web.

Flock’s Gloss Edition is designed to deliver the latest fashion interviews, red carpet events and the hottest style trends to users allowing them to easily share content and information with friends. Flock’s Media Streams, News Feeds and Favorites features have been pre-programmed with content recommended from today’s leading lifestyle sources like Popsugar, InStyle.com, Glam.com, ThisNext.com, Ecorazzi.com, DesignerApparel.com and other leading style and entertainment brands.

“Flock makes the organization and presentation of this content intuitive and helps users easily discover and share media, feeds and information with their social network profiles, family and friends,” said Shawn Hardin, CEO of Flock. “The Gloss Edition, together with the recently released Eco-Edition, demonstrates the power of Flock’s platform to serve diverse groups who are deeply passionate about a variety of interests.”

“Glam Media is excited to be a part of Flock’s Gloss edition,” said Ryan Roslansky, Vice President, Products & Content, Glam Media. “With integration at the browser level, we’ll be able to reach new audiences while providing an easy way for consumers to access content from our more than 500 popular lifestyle publishers in the Glam Network.”

Additionally, Popsugar and InStyle fans will have the option to download special Popsugar and InStyle versions of the Gloss Edition browser. The content of the two versions will remain with the same great fashion and entertainment features, but will include default homepages featuring the respective partner sites.

The Flock Gloss Edition Browser is available as a free software download for Mac, PC and Linux at http://www.flock.com/gloss.

About Flock

Flock is the first and only social Web browser that helps users connect, share and discover the best of the modern Web. Flock delivers a more personal Web experience, where users are in control and more connected to what they value. In 2008, Flock received the Webby Award for social networking, the SXSW Community Award and was listed #6 in PC World’s 100 Best Products of 2008. Built on Mozilla’s constantly improving Firefox architecture (http://www.flock.com/mozilla) Flock is free to download and use at http://www.flock.com. Founded in 2005, Flock is based in Redwood City, Calif. and has an office in Victoria, British Columbia.

I’ve been using the Flock 2.0 Beta with great success on my Mac running Windows Vista, which has been doing very well. I’m no so sure I love the address bar to be a sort of virtual search- It is just one more way of finding the sites you’ve visited, so I can live with the visual distraction.

Another cool thing is the Bug Report Button. I think it should look more like a nasty roach than a harmless fly, but it is sort of whimsical and almost acknowledging that things are not perfect.

Links to Flock 2.0 Beta:

http://flock.com/beta/download

http://mashable.com/2008/06/16/flock-20-web-browser-beta/

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Browsers/Flock-for-Windows.shtml

Here is a tech blog post that’s a little dated. I’m using flock 1.21 and the author of this post is talking about version 1. However, I too have dumped Firefox for Flock. I have done so for many of the reasons in the article:

Read it here: http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/005768.html