The shutdown comes just months after Flock was acquired by social gaming startup Zynga.
“The Flock team joined Zynga in January, 2011 and is now working to assist Zynga in achieving their goal of building the most fun, social games available to anyone, anytime — on any platform,” the company writes of the shutdown.
Users can continue to use unsupported versions the browser, but the Flock team strongly suggests that its users migrate to Chrome or Firefox. “Flock will no longer be actively maintained … key features will stop working after 4/26/11 and over time the browser will no longer be secure as software updates and upgrades will no longer be provided,” reads a FAQ entry o n the site.
Flock is a casualty of the social nature of the web and Facebook's Open Graph initiative. Web denizens now carry their social graph with them via Facebook and not through the browser. Its shutdown also calls to mind the rise and fall of the once great Flip video camera, which is also being discontinued.
In the wake of Flock’s demise, keep an eye on RockMelt, a competing social web browser released late last year.
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