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Look, I know this is a beta app and that means it's not feature complete or bug-free, but I had higher hopes for Fizzik's “social web browser.” When I first wrote about it, it seemed like an interesting concept — perhaps this underscores the importance of waiting until you get your hands on a program before making that call.

When you launch Fizzik, you see the screen above. I'm no interface designer, but I think there might be one or two minor flaws with this. I'm going to pretend I'm an average user for the next few paragraphs:

For starters, what the hell do I click on? Where's my home page? When I start Internet Explorer I see MSN. How come I don't see anything but blackness on Fizzik. I see a magnifying glass which I assume is to search, but what if I don't want to search? What if I want to look at ilovebacon.com? Where do I type that? Can I type that? It doesn't look like I can.

I'll give up and perform a search for ilovebacon instead. That tone on tone button is nearly an inch wide, but I still have to click right on the magnifying glass?

Here's what I get when I click the button. This is search, right? Where's the G for Google or Y for Yahoo? What the heck is that b with the dot in it? Under video I see YouTube…What about Hulu? I watch videos there, too. Maybe that's what that H is for under the news. Huffington Post? What the hell is that?

Ok, I'll look for a CD on Amazon instead:

Ahh, there's what I get in my regular web browser. But I don't understand why it's so much harder in Fizzik. In Internet Explorer I can pick Amazon from the search box and do the same thing — and I still have nice, obvious menus and buttons I can click on.

Maybe I'll try that plus thing now. Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail. Still no link to Google…How the heck do I Google something? Maybe I can import my favorites…Or maybe not, since there's no menu that I can find that would let me do stuff like that.

…and that wraps up a new user's look at Fizzik.

Here's my beef with this program. Who is Fizzik targetting? Casual users who don't understand the complexities of the web? I don't think those are the kind of people who will be willing to figure out such an alien interface.

Is it power users who love the social web and media sites? Possibly, but those people — like most of our readers — would gladly choose a faster and more extensible browser like Firefox or Google Chrome and mold it into their own personalized power browser.

Ultimately, Fizzik just confuses me. What do you think, DS readers?

tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/05/10/fizzik-social-web-browser-beta-confusing'; tweetmeme_source='DownloadSquad'; tweetmeme_style = 'compact'; Share Fizzik's social web browser enters public beta, but I kinda wish it hadn't

Source: Download Squad