A UK developer who goes by “Tones” has created a Flock-specific extension that puts Meebo, and therefore Yahoo, AIM, Gtalk and MSN IM, directly into a sidebar in the Flock browser (the extension also works for Firefox). Since Flock and Meebo are two startups I use, this looked interesting.
I’ve downloaded the extension and tried it out. It works as promised, although it requires constant re-sizing of the IM windows to make it work right. Until the kinks are worked out (possibly via Meebo’s support of the project, which I encourage), I don’t recommend using it.
But I do support the idea behind this entirely. IM should (optionally) be pulled right into the browser, where most of the action on a computer today occurs anyway. There should be no need to use a separate set of clients on the desktop for IM, or even go to Meebo’s website. Just as Flock has built a photo uploader directly into the browser (for flickr and photobucket), they should integrate IM functionality directly into it as well.
More TechCrunch posts on Flock are here and Meebo are here.
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Awesome! This is something really useful. Now Flock is really the ultimate all-in-one browser. Flickr/Photobucket support - check. Blogging support - check. RSS reader - check. del.icio.us integration - check. The only thing remaining, according to me, is Google support. I wish I could install the Google Notebook and Browser Sync extensions in Flock.
I bookmarked this on Digg, it’s a natural frontpagr:
http://digg.com/software/Meebo_Extension_for_Flock
Ah, my Indian reader(s) are online.
Isn’t that a little backwards? The idea of Meebo is to be web-based and available everywhere. If it’s embedded in an application, it’s just a crappy version of Trillian/Adium.
This is the best thing to happen since Opera! Well technically to a cybercafe owner like me.
Downloading different clients was a pain, plus multi-chat clients weren’t easy for the general public. Got to try this thing out. Woohoo! Thanks!
Ashish - what I want is to remove the need to even download a single multi-chat client, and have all of this built into the browser.
Gosh, thank you for assessing my little extension! Am new to development and you rightly point out the existance of ‘kinks’. To be honest hadn’t really expected it to be useful given the lack of auto-login, window resizing and session shutdown problems.
As meebo is an AJAX site, logic dictates to me that it should be possible to add javascript to the extension to handle the above problems (?), but have been going round it circles trying to solve it
Think there may be a whole lot of people out there happy if meebo/someone wanted to help me iron out the kinks.
Hey Mike,
I think the problem in loading up too many javascript stuff onto mozilla is that it slows down the computer.. meebo, gmail, ff extensions and too much ajax can be a drag on computers with less ram
until the day javascript interpretation can be speeded up, i think i’d still use GAIM because it runs much lighter and faster
Justin
Hey Justin,
Why does it have to be via javascript? There’s lots of room in the browser app besides the web page/window.
maybe one day browser should simply be split-windows - thus users could load their fav website whichever it is on the side-window while browsing around the web web web .
Mike your comment reminded me of CoolTalk. Not quite an IM client (if you remember, it was low quality VoIP, and a bit ahead of its time), and not quite built into the browser, but it did get installed when you installed good old Netscape… Anyway, just thinking about good old times
Tones - thanks for commenting on your project. I encourage you to evolve it!
RBA - Netscape…that’s a Digg clone, right?
I don’t understand what’s so hot about this extension… it’s just a sidebar that loads a website. There have been plenty of extensions and bookmarklets that do the same thing but with other sites/pages.
This should be great if it were ported to Firefox too.
You can install a VoIP extension for Flock as well.
You can download it from here:
http://lucafiligheddu.blogspot.....41395.html
I remember features like this being integrated into the Netscape browser (who uses that bloatware any more?) and being very indifferent to it until I was in a closed computing encironment, like a school or netcafe. That is the great thing abou Meebo. This extension could be tied up on a USB key and take my IM client with me anywhere in the world, on almost any computer.
Tones, if you remember the days of Flock 0.4, they didn’t have auto-login for delicious bookmarks at first. Keep up the good work.
‘course I am, Mike. Would have replied earlier, but we’ve got a second Mac in the house. Was busy setting it up.
I’ve had this extension loaded up all morning and I’ve noticed that it’s been dragging down my processor. With the extension running, I’m hitting 70-80% of my 1.5G processor; without it, I jump back down to 30-40% (running email client, iTunes, and Excel).
I love the idea of combining IM into Flock due to it’s focus on social interaction. Let’s hope some scripters (and possibly Meebo?) can help the original developer flesh out this extension into a necessary browser feature.
Just my two cents.
Damnit!! I want Trillian intergrated already!!=(
Personally I like Having stuff intergrated but I usually accidently close windows and having an important conversation with a client shouldn’t be done on Meebo. Flock seems to be picking up plenty of speed though. Hey Mike why dont you guys start developing your own browser. You have the user base to make it fly!
This should benefit both of the people that use Flock (Chris Messina and Tara “My Cankles Are So Hungry” Whateverherlastnameis).
Nice application, still waiting to use Flock, but can’t because of the broken bookmarks.
#12, Mike… Er… Well, it is now
It started as a piece of software that paved the road for the net revolution, then it became an ugly portal, then a ridiculous ISP, and now a Digg clone… Geez…
Am I the only one thinking that the Flock team, tones and the meebo dudes should sit together and discuss the integration of meebo with Flock?
What if Flock included tones’ extension by default in the next version and ask the user whether it should be activated or not? With increased support by the folks at meebo (if needed) this could turn out to be yet another advantage for Flock. No?
And @JustinLee (#7):
I understand your concern, but isn’t this the same code that would’ve run inside a tab if the user had meebo opened in a window? I don’t see how it would downgrade performance, but I could be wrong.
Mike, since extensions are basically XUL and javascript(right?), that’s why Justin was concerned with the ammount of JS code being processed by the browser at any given time. (I think)
you guys need a life !!!!!!!!!!!!!!