Flock Says "Enough"

Flock has gotten a lot of criticism lately.

The reason for this particular round of naysaying is the launch of the impressive Performancing Firefox plugin that allows extremely easy blogging, from Firefox, for WordPress, MovableType or Blogger. Performancing is getting extremely good reviews from top bloggers like Paul Kedrosky, Om Malik and Steve Rubel.

But the attacks didn’t start with the release of Performancing. They go way back. Flock even has its own hate blog (flocksucks.wordpress.com) (although this one substitutes common cruelty for actual insight and humor).

My guess is Flock is suffering from a bit of backlash over its early hype. And my further guess is that Flock, backed by an impressive group of founders and investors, has a few massive tricks up its sleeve that will be announced (or leak out) sometime soon.

Until now Flock has done little to fuel all the hype, and have likewise refrained from responding to the criticism.

Tonight, however, Flock’s Chris Messina, supported by CEO Bart Decrem, takes issue with some of the bashing.

I like this post, and not just because Chris at one point says “jack-in-the-box assclown” or calls web surfing with Firefox extensions “Firefox and Duct tape”. Chris gives a passionate, if not entirely fact laden, speach on what the hell they are trying to accomplish over at Flock.

But no, see, that’s where Flock comes in. Or I don’t care, don’t call it Flock. Whatever you want, but that’s where the thing we’re building comes in. That’s why we exist, that’s why we matter, that’s what the point is.

Yeah, Firefox and Duct tape, it’ll help. Sure sure. It’ll get you some of the way there. But hell, when I’m talking to someone, engaged in a conversation that threatens my very existence, or that threatens to change the way I flip my omelettes, man, I do not want my mouth to fall off at the jaw because it wasn’t tested, wasn’t built right, didn’t have a million beedy eyes boring down on it while it was being fastened to my head, making sure the stupid thing would function in the real world without needing pliers or a tireiron to get it to work right.

My last post on Flock, covering its beta launch, is here.

Disclaimer: I like Flock and the Flock employees. I get excited about big ideas. And I believe Flock can be a big idea.