I can't point at any figures indicating whether or not the browser market is maturing or fragmenting. But a common rendering engine that displays sites decently and other features made specifically for a group of users is a much better way to get your user base going.
But you need to have those basic features up to scratch, always. OmniWeb was a favorite of many and had stronger capabilites than Saft for Safari. They even had a wonderful feature that let you type in any part of a previously-entered URL. They had vertical tabs, so I could have all 43 browser windows open at once without making a mess. They had excellent, built-in ad blocking. But they didn't have strong _javascript_ and Ajax-support, top-notch PDF-readers and so on. And back to Safari we went, with lots of plug-ins.
Flock will have to be social (integrating with services), open (plug-ins, skins, apis) and special (magic mystery sauce) to succeed. But it'll need to keep the basics in order, too.
Ideally it's better to thrill that 1% with your features and have them teach their friends how great it is so you get to 10%, 20% and so on. But this might be a case of designer-developer myopia. Not everyone uses delicious, not everyone is equally geek. Still, I can't wait to see how Flock plans to blow us away/ lock us in as users.
- Fredrik
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