Modern Web browsers are far nicer than the limited creatures we wrestled with in the mid-90s, but as “Web 2.0” matures, why are we still using Web 1.0 browsers?

Consider this: prior to Web 2.0, the Internet delivered a largely linear, site-to-site experience, with users moving like automobiles on highways.

Today’s user is more akin to a hub at the center of a hyper-connected Web experience, with connections, relationships and conversations running in all directions – sometimes numbering in the thousands.

In that environment, you have to ask: are today’s “popular” Web browsers really serving advanced Web 2.0 users?

I Try Two “Web 2.0” Browsers

As I noted in an earlier post, I’m trying to refine my online experience, eliminating distractions, reducing my time investment, and focusing on the media channels and information sources that really matter.

And since technology is partially responsible for the problem, perhaps it can help with the solution. I found and briefly tested two potential "Web 2.0" browsers, and while both offer some hope to overstretched information junkies, they do so in very different manners.

eCorral: A Power Tool

eCorral by Big Horizon Software represents a sizable departure from the mainstream web browsers; I’d suggest it’s a tool that will delight researchers and power users.

Key features include a tabbed browser, tabbed RSS reader, the ability to create “corrals” (groups of Web pages), and “custom” pages.

The “corrals” struck me as particularly useful; researching projects online often means I end the day with a dozen or more Web pages staring at me. Saving them all via Google Notebook isn’t wholly easy, but with a single command, eCorral will save the addresses in a corral, and reopen all the pages in that corral when you resume your research.

You can create as many corrals as you want, and share those corrals with others (which sounds handy for work groups).

eCorral’s “Custom” pages let you stitch together local files, Web pages, RSS feeds, applications – basically, whatever you can find — on a single page. A power user could really go to town with this feature, though I haven’t used the software enough to build many pages.

eCorral is a commercial product, so after a 30 day free trial, the software costs you $19.95.

Nowadays, people expect everything to be free, but many users should find eCorral well worth the minimal cost. The corral feature along adds a great deal value if you do much in the way of online research.

Interestingly, eCorral is available in a “branded” version; an organization could purchase a license to modify and distribute the software to employees, stakeholders, franchisees, etc.

This product speaks to commercial entities rather than individual users, but I find its long-term implications interesting; a company could put a custom version of eCorral on employee/dealer/franchisee desktops, pushing information to them via custom RSS feeds, custom pages, corrals, etc.

Flock: The Social Browser

Flock is less of a departure from “standard” Web tools than eCorral; it’s simply a derivative of the hugely popular Firefox/Mozilla browser, but with “social network” features added.

In fact, Flock dubs itself the “Social Web Browser.”

A sidebar toggles between your social network accounts, people, RSS feeds and other useful toys. It even offers a photo uploader and blog post editor.

The blog editor’s pretty basic, and in fact, it’s geared towards posts created from online elements, and seemingly lacks the ability to upload images.

My overall impression is one of a work in progress. Social network fanatics will likely find a lot of useful features right now, though its connectivity to social sites is limited (it recognizes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc, but doesn’t recognize sites I use like LinkedIn, Goodreads, Gather, etc).

On the plus side, some of the features are pretty handy, though if you use too many of them, a resource-hungry Flock could bring your computer to its knees.

Installation is a snap; it even imports your existing Firefox bookmarks, though sadly, not the extensions. Simply put, it’s very easy to install and try.

It’s likely Flock will find a home with social network users, though I’d love to hear comments from hardcore Facebookers and others (I’m not a hardcore social networker).

It’s essentially a tarted-up Firefox, and it’s an interesting step in an interesting direction.

Are We There Yet?

I haven’t used either product long enough to vouch for anything but their simplest features and most basic reliability.

Frankly, the power features of eCorral are seductive, and its corrals promise much to online researchers. Whether the strength of its features can overcome its different-from-IE-and-
Firefox interface and slight cost remains to be seen.

Flock is less impressive on an innovation front, though perhaps no less seductive to social media types.

Will Browser 2.0 (and 3.0, and 4.0) represent a departure from the norm, or will we all end up staring at the same two browser windows for years to come?

Is the once-monolithic browser market set to fragment into niche products targeted at specific users?