Social networks have been around since the dawn of “Web 2.0″. However, there has never been a way of aggregating all that data into one easily accessible and convenient place. Until now.

Flock was (arguably) the first “Web 2.0 browser” that integrated blogging, social networking, RSS and social bookmarking. One of the reasons why Flock hasn’t taken off is due to its speed. Even on the MacBook which sports one of the latest Intel chips, loading it still feels slow.

Well, Mozilla is announcing a similar feature called “The Coop”, which allows users to share links with one another through a sort of buddy list built into the browser. The buddy list contains each friend’s Flickr photos, YouTube videos, tagged websites, blog posts, etc. You get the idea.

Is this a new direction for browsers? Becoming “Web 2.0″? No, I honestly doubt it. Until web apps use some similar framework or API, browsers will only be able to support the most popular services. (case in point, Flock only supports Flickr and Photobucket for photosharing)

To me, speed is an important issue when it comes to applications. I prefer using several simple applications than to run a single bloated one. However, if you do like the convenience of “having everything in one place”, then this might just do the trick. In the meantime, do check out Flock. More updates as they come.