Rockmelt

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Rockmelt is a Chromium based web browser with social media features integrated directly in to the browser window. By combining multiple social media sites in one place, users can keep track of many of their social networks and news feeds in one place without the need to visit multiple web pages. The Chromium base gives Rockmelt much of the same functionality as Google Chrome. The browser is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and iOS.

History

Rockmelt was founded in 2009 by Tim Howes and Eric Vishria and is now based out of Mountain View, California.

Social Media Integration

Rockmelt is partnered with Facebook, so a Facebook account is required to use many of the integrated social media features. Facebook friend requests, messages, and notifications are always displayed above the browser bar in the Rockmelt browser window.

Chat

The right chat panel of the browser window contains a list of the user's Facebook friends. This panel can be set to show only the friends' Facebook profile picture or their picture and name. Online users are represented by a green dot in the lower right corner of their pictures while offline users have a grey dot. When you click on a friend's name, a chat window opens at the bottom of the screen.

News Feed

The left panel contains a list of icons for Rockmelt Apps. When these apps have updates to their respective news feeds, a red box with the number of new posts or articles appears in the upper right corner of the icon. When a user clicks on the icon, a floating window appears on top of the main browser window with the latest post and articles for the app sorted chronologically with the most recent on top.

Sharing

On the far left of the browser window in the same row as the browser bar, there is a "New Post" button which allows users to post a new status to Facebook. Users can also add links and locations to their status. Additionally, to share links directly, users can click the "Share" button that appears to the right of the browser bar. This will post the link to the page the user is currently on as their Facebook status or to the wall of a friend.

Additional Features

Rockmelt Browser Bar

Like in Google Chrome, the Rockmelt Browser Bar, also known as the "Social Omnibox," serves as direct access to Google search. When a user begins to type in the box, suggested searches and websites will be generated in a drop down menu. However, the "Social Omnibox" also allows users to search their Facebook contacts, open friends' Facebook profile pages, send Facebook Messages, post on friends' Facebook walls and open other Rockmelt Apps.

Social Reading

When Social Reading is turned on, other Rockmelt users that are connected to the initial user via Facebook can see what articles or posts the user has read. Reading an article or post is considered clicking the post and opening the link. Social Reading does not post to the user's Facebook or other social networking sites, but does post to the Rockmelt feed that appears in the Rockmelt New Tab page. Social Reading can be turned on and off on an app by app basis, so it is not necessary for a user to share what they read in all of the apps they use.

View Later

View Later is the icon in the left panel of the Rockmelt browser that looks like a clock. Users can add articles and posts to View Later by clicking this icon in the app news feed. Users can also add web pages to View Later by clicking the same icon in the browser bar. To remove items from View Later, users can click the clock icon again or go to the View Later news feed and read the items.

Quiet Mode

Quiet Mode is a Rockmelt feature that allows users to turn off the social media integration features in the Rockmelt browser window. When activated, Quiet Mode hides both the right and left panels as well as the Facebook friend request, message, and notification section above the browser bar. New notifications for Rockmelt apps are disabled during Quiet Mode. Upon turning off Quiet Mode, notifications will be reactivated and all apps will be updated. Rockmelt markets Quiet Mode for times when users need to focus or be free from distractions.

References

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