<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Flock-main-window.png"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-8078" title="Flock main window" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Flock-main-window-300x224.png" alt="" width="300" height="224" /></a>It's my entirely unscientific and unresearched opinion that most people want to spend less time on 'social media' right now than they did when Facebook and Twitter and all the others who fell by the wayside were flavour of the month.

So it surprises me not one whit that Flock, the 'social media' browser that's been touting itself as The Next Big Thing since 2006, just <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/13/flock_browser_no_more/" target="_blank">bit the dust</a>. I'm indebted to The Register for a link to the BBC web site for what it accurately calls a '<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4382626.stm">toe-curling extended profile</a>' of the project in its prime. Flock worked its way through $30 million of investors' money before finally rolling over and expiring. Just read the BBC piece to understand how convinced its inventors were that we all desperately needed what it would deliver.

Boy do the futurists get it badly wrong sometimes.

Flock spent its last few months in the ownership of the people behind that wonderful social invention, Farmville, though they just bought the development team, not the browser, which is now officially 'unsupported'.

If you are in desperate need of a replacement there's already a new kid on the social media browser block. It's called <a href="http://www.rockmelt.com/" target="_blank">Rockmelt</a>. Since I'd quite like to finish the book I'm writing I will, however, be giving it a miss, though others with more time on their hands may feel differently and for all I know it is truly wonderful indeed.