RockMelt browser integrates social features, gracefully (images)
New browser makes the Web more social, without getting in your face about it.
Rafe Needleman
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
Extra features in the new RockMelt browser, backed by Mosaic developer Marc Andreessen, are hidden in the browser frame. Two "wings" to the left and right of the page show who's online (left) and what's new (right). Share buttons and a new search feature are at the top.
The left-hand wing shows you which of your Facebook friends are online. You can read updates or start chats with them from here. You can also filter the list to just a few people you want to see in RockMelt, which remains in beta.
Your social feeds, RSS feeds, and plug-ins park on the right wing. The Twitter and Facebook modules, for example, sit here on the right. You can see all updates or just your own messages.
There's a "share" button on the top of the page for pushing content out to Facebook or Twitter. One could assume it would become "like" if Facebook gets directly involved.
The extra search feature (beyond the search built into the address bar) is very strong. It lets you fly through search results quickly. An "open in new tab" button appears in highlighted results and lets you pop pages into background tabs.
The RSS reader in the RockMelt makes it easy to subscribe to pages, and to see feeds from your favorites. It's not as fully-developed as the search result viewer, though.
You have to be invited by a RockMelt user to get the beta. But as soon as you sign up for the program with your Facebook ID, all your Facebook friends who use the browser will see that you're waiting to get into the club. Any one of them can invite you.
