Will Social Networking be embedded into Browsers?

Google Chrome was launched a year ago this week. Chrome concentrated much on the speed.

As internet applications running inside a browser become more complex, speed of running Javascript has become a central issue in making the web perform more effectively.

Google has shown that encryption can work inside a browser, removing the need for a PC to communicate with a server to authenticate a user, thereby speeding up the experience of an application, says Brian Rakowski, Chrome product manager.

Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, says it is looking into adding a number of extra capabilities to its software. “There’s a lot of space for expansion of what it means for your browser to be your agent, to be an extension of you,” says Chris Beard, Mozilla’s chief innovation officer.

The list of things he says a browser should be able to do includes: know who you are and handle authentication on the websites you visit; keep a record of your social network so that you can interact with friends; and, make it easier to share content with your network.

Potential for “social browsers” is a hot topic in Silicon Valley.

Currently available Social Browser is Flock

Flock is a web browser built on Mozilla’s Firefox codebase that specializes in providing social networking and Web 2.0 facilities built into its user interface. Flock v2.5 was officially released on May 19, 2009

Flock 2.5 integrates social networking and media services including MySpace,Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc.Notably, when logging into any of the supported social services, Flock can track updates from friends: profiles, uploaded photos, and more. Flock's latest 2.5 version added Twitter Search functionality, multi-casting of status updates to multiple services, and the introduction of instant messaging via Facebook Chat in the browser.