Dr. Martens celebrates their 50 years by hiring 10 artists to cover 10 classic tunes and 10 directors to create 10 videos that represent the the “spirit” of Dr. Martens fans through the years. The tracks are specifically selected to represent the unique “spirit” of those who wear Dr. Martens. Each video has been crafted to fit the grungy, alternative style.
The list of musicians involved is impressive and includes talents like Noisettes and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Tracks and videos are released every few weeks. To date, three covers have been released and the response has been fantastic! The Noisettes’ cover of Buzzcocks’ Ever Fallen in Love with Someone has been viewed over 32,000 times on YouTube and embedded on many blogs and music websites. I personally came across Noisettes’ cover of Buzzcocks’ Ever Fall in Love with Someone on Stereomood – a internet radio site.
I installed Flock 2.5, wanting a blogging tool that I could use offline. The fact that it promised to bring all my social networking together (Twitter, Facebook, Delicious.. even RSS feeds) was an added bonus. That said, I am going to be reviewing this product mainly as a blogging tool because that was how I intended to use it.
I like the interface, it looks simplistic enough, most of the basic functions are there. I especially like the “web clipboard” , where I can immediate post up any images or videos that I have saved earlier. I also like its Dreamweaver-like ability to switch from Editor to Source to Preview, making coding and previewing a snap. I also have the option to save a draft and pull it up again later.
At first glance, I was worried that I could not input my blog Categories as the option does not appear in the main window like it does on WordPress. I was also horrified when I thought I had to go through a whole tiresome process if I wanted to toggle between the two blog accounts that I’m managing. However, my concerns disappeared when I clicked “Publish”. A window will pop up and allow you to choose the blog you’d like to post to, the categories, and whether you want to replace an existing blog post (I found this pretty nifty!). There is also a brilliant function that allows you to send an update to your Facebook newsfeed.
The main gripe I would have would be absence of the “queue” function. I use that function quite regularly so that I can spread my blog posts out as evenly as possible, and the option of saving it as a draft and posting it later isn’t really enough.
Overall, Flock is a pretty impressive tool for social networking. It does a great job of handling all my RSS Feeds and my “People” on Twitter and Facebook. I like that I can easily pull out data and information, and share them quickly and effciently. However, while it appears to be a fairly decent blogging tool, I would say that it falls short for me personally, purely because of the lack of the “queue” function.
Flock 2.5 is certainly worth a try if you’re a social networking freak and a casual blogger. Download it here.
