First Look at RockMelt, a Browser Built For Facebook Freaks by Michael Calore written on November 7, 2010 is the fifth news report that I found. (http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/first-look-at-rockmelt-a-browser-built-for-facebook-freaks/)
Michael Calore discusses the new web browser, RockMelt, that is being introduced by Facebook. There have been rumors of Facebook creating a browser and November 7 is the release of the limited public beta. Both founders, CEO Eric Vishria and CTO Tim Howes, demonstrated RockMelt to Wired a few days before the beta was released.
The uniqueness of this browser is that it is based on Google’s Chromium, so it includes Chrome’s features such as it’s speed, look, and functionality. It is also offered for both Mac and Windows so it is not tied down to just one group of PC users.
Even though RockMelt is made by Facebook, Calore explains that the browser is not exactly a Facebook browser, but does allow users to post links, videos and status updates to both Facebook and Twitter for right now, but they hope to expand the browsers capabilities. The most impressive feature the browser has is what is on the sides of the window browser.
The left side has the users picture at the top, and their friends they interact with the most appear in a list below. To send a tweet or update your Facebook, you click on your picture, similar to how Facebook works. To send your friend a message or chat with them you click their photo; again similar to Facebook.
The right side of the browser window has small icons for each of the services RockMelt tracks for you, which like was stated earlier is only Facebook and Twitter.
The uniqueness of the browser is interesting to me, and appears on the surface like a great idea. With that being said, I do not know how well it will catch on. The marketing, even for the beta, has not been widely publicized, and other browsers similar to this one that have appeared, such as Flock, the Myspace version, never caught on. Hopefully, with some testing and especially marketing they can compete with the dominating Internet Explorer web browser, especially with Google on board. Along with competing with other web browsers they can make the other features Google offers more popular.
No comments:
Post a Comment