“Daddy – when do I get to roast marshmallows over the fire like the big boys? This baby yogurt is getting old.”

A few days ago, Flock finally put up a public beta of the branch of the Firefox code they have been working on for some time now. I’ve heard some outcry that Flock is doing a bad thing by taking our beloved Firefox in a different direction and – God forbid – making a commercial venture out of it. Why not contribute back to the Firefox tree? Why ‘pirate’ the hard work of thousands of dedicated developers to line the pockets of a few?

This is capitalism at work. The market had a hole in it: people have been using the same ho-hum browsing experience for a decade now, and as websites and services have advanced, the browser has done nothing (besides add the Javascript, clean up the memory leaks, accept plug-ins, etc etc – which is a lot) to integrate the experience with the rich functionality of the desktop. In fact, the goal has been to isolate it from the desktop for security reasons.

In comes Flock and says “hey, we can make a better broswer that blurs the lines between desktop and web, and, by George, we’ll get paid by the search engines if people come our way.” So, the ever-present drive for innovation (and IPOs) has given us what is, in my opinion, a great new browser.

I met w/ Bart, one of the founders of Flock, last week and he took me through the experience of sharing Photos with my friends. The ease with which he could upload photos, blog photos, or view new photos from his friends was astonishing. A perfect blend of the desktop and web. I predict many downloads for Flock this summer. If this happens, the people will have voted.

The same debate ensued when Apple made OS X out of the Berkeley Systems port of UNIX. Most people on both sides of the debate probably own a Mac by now – OS X is, after all, the most widely-sold UNIX-based operating system.

A friend of mine who “transforms home video into memories” just launched her website, Time Capsule Films. She can make your graduation, baby, or wedding video into a valuable keepsake, rather than a long, boring video that gathers dust on your shelf.

Some photo sites, like One True Media and Snapfish, have taken on the problem, correctly assuming that consumers won’t venture too far away from what they are already used to when sharing pics from their digital camera. 

Expect online video sharing to become as commonplace as online photo sharing in the coming years.  If you’re not convinced, check out You Tube.

One commonly requested feature is the ability to download high-resolution photos — your own, or your guest’s. Many photo sites, like Ofoto and Snapfish, charge you for this since the bandwidth is expensive and they want to keep you locked into the service. This is the beauty of branded advertising – we can offer customers what they want… for free. In order to keep people from taking their photos elsewhere, we’re just planning on offering a better product.

While print-to-store is a boon for consumers, it’s really only a boon for the consumers who shop at those stores already. If you use one online photo service that works with a retail store you never visit, you might actually end up putting photos on many services depending on which way you are driving home that day. The online photo site that offers more choices will acquire and retain more users… sending more people to each retail partner.

That’s right, we both can program computers, and fixing cars these days involves intricate knowledge of fancy gadgets (what geek can resist fancy gadgets?). Furthermore, it looks like salaries are comparable to high-flying silicon valley jobs. Soon, car companies will offer stock options to their ‘auto technicians,’ GM will recruit straight from the Computer Science program at Berkeley, and slashtire.org will be overloaded with postings about open-source engine management software.

Stranger things have happened.

Take this quiz to see if you want to be a car mechanic.