Review: RockMelt Takes Browser Social With Facebook IntegrationReview: RockMelt Takes Browser Social With Facebook Integration

RockMelt Social Web Browser Revealed

The newest entry in the browser wars is RockMelt, a Google Chromium-based browser designed to tightly integrate with social networks. Since social networking-focused browsers are nothing new, what makes RockMelt stand out?

One reason is the person behind it, namely browser pioneer and Netascape founder Marc Andreessen. When someone like Andreessen releases an alpha of a new browser, people pay attention. From a features standpoint, there isn’t much that we haven’t seen in similar social browsers, such as Flock, or even in social extensions for browsers, like Firefox and Google Chrome.

However, especially given its early release status, RockMelt's implementation of its social features is surprisingly strong. In fact, its Facebook integration is so good that it could easily become the browser of choice for heavy Facebook users.

Since RockMelt is based on the Chromium engine behind the Google Chrome browser, upon launching it I saw much of the same interface of Chrome but with some important differences.

When you launch RockMelt, it asks for your Facebook login. Once it starts, it automatically logs into Facebook and integrates Facebook information directly into the browser interface. This includes a list of Facebook friends (shown with small image thumbnails) that runs down the lefthand side of the browser window.

This listing could be customized to show favorites, which are selected by hitting a star next to the person's image. Clicking on a friend's thumbnail displayed that person's most recent status and provided the option to chat with or post on that person's wall. This is useful, though I was unable to find an option to send a message to a friend from within RockMelt.

When viewing websites from within RockMelt, a user can easily choose to share any page being viewed by clicking the share button next to the address bar. By clicking this button, I could post the link to my Facebook wall and include a comment or could (at least in this area of RockMelt) send the link as a message to a Facebook friend.

RockMelt Social Web Browser Revealed

By far, one of the most powerful features of RockMelt is how it has improved the integrated search in Chromium. When entering a search term within the search field, RockMelt first looked to see if it matched a friend and then performed a full search, with results displayed in a drop-down box.

The box made it easy to scan results with lots of information and offered a nice site preview, essentially loading the site into the main RockMelt browser window.

Down the righthand side of RockMelt is where other services are integrated with the browser, including Twitter and any site with an RSS feed. Clicking on the icon of the service showed popped up a box along the right, where status updates and news could be viewed.

Along with the Twitter and newsfeed information, I could access my Facebook newsfeed from here, though the only option was the full live feed, and not the top news option available in the main Facebook page. It was in this area that I ran into another glitch. When adding my Twitter information, I accidentally used the wrong account name. However, I could find no way to edit the Twitter account information inside RockMelt, meaning on that system, I could not access my Twitter feed from within RockMelt.

As a browser, RockMelt performs great, not surprising given that it is essentially Google Chrome. And, outside of a slightly different new tab page, the underlying interface is the same as in Chrome.

Whether this browser will redefine how we use the web or will simply become a niche tool for heavy Facebook users remains to be seen. Right now, RockMelt, while in some ways impressive, is an early version and probably not ready for most users.