Zynga Acquires Flock Leaving the Browser's Future Uncertain

Zynga is acquiring the company behind the social web browser Flock. The six-year-old company has been working on a browser that comes with built-in access to the social web, sharing and so on. The idea never really became a huge hit with users and the future of the Flock browser looks grim since this seems like a talent acquisition. The announcement doesn't make any promises about the browser.

"I’m very excited to announce that the Flock team will be joining the social gaming phenomenon, Zynga," Flock CEO Shawn Hardin announced.

There were no financial or other details on the acquisition. From a technology point of view, while both Zynga games and the Flock browser have "social" components at their core, there's not much linking the two companies.

Zynga has been on an acquisition spree, but so far it only bought other smaller game studios to expand its team. However, it seems like Zynga was not the only company wanting to buy Flock, Google and Twitter were both interested, indicating that this may be a talent acquisition.

"This month marked Flock’s six-year anniversary and, from the beginning, we’ve always believed in the transformative power of social. We knew that it would change everything we do online, so we worked hard to make it easier and more rewarding for you to discover, enjoy and share the relationships and content you’re passionate about," Hardin added.

"And so, it is incredibly exciting and rewarding for us to take our expertise and passion for great products to one of the hottest and most innovative companies in the world," he said.

While the announcement touted the fact that Flock had 10 million users and was one of the most popular Facebook desktop apps, there were no guarantees that work on the browser will continue.

Flock has recently switched from Firefox to Chromium as its underpinnings. However, despite the market for a social browser not being proven in any way, a very similar competitor was recently launched, RockMelt.