Birds of a Flock

Flock came, and was more jeered than cheered.

Here is a comment by someone that aptly summarize what I wanted to say about Flock-

"If Flock is the poster child for Web 2.0 then I have got to be honest, I am disappointed! It seems a lot of window dressing on top of a normal browser (FF).

FWIW, I think Flock is more like Web 1.1a SP1 than Web 2.0."

Indeed, integrating del.icio.us, Flickr, RSS feeds in a browser itself is a good beginning, not the end of the road. Social bookmarking is much wider concept that most people think it is. Bookmarking isn't limited to the web. The web is only part of the larger picture. There is whole lot of content lying on the millions of desktops. Then there is Google Print, trying to solve the problem of lack of online content by the same 'brute force way'(TM) it always does (Just add your C:\ Drive twice in the Google Desktop Search, it'll index it twice).

Google Reader

Now this one was due from Google, and appeared without the usual Google Chaos. A RSS Feed Reader competing with Bloglines, My Yahoo!

Being web browser based it has all the usual drawbacks and advantages. AJAX goodness on one hand and "Arrgh! The page has been corrupted" on the other.

Not a completely polished product yet, e.g. very few loading messages to notify user of any processing as in Gmail ( Alex Bosworth's Ajax Mistakes #1)

OPML importing from current feed reader(Suace Reader) failed on the first time with adding just one feed, and the second time it took ages to import. I am still not sure it has imported everything.

As of now it doesn't seem usable enough for me. Even Google Sidebar is much more useful than Google Reader.