Rockmelt Blog

What does a big launch look like at a startup? Want to learn about the people behind RockMelt and our company culture? Read on for more details! (Note: pictures were taken from a few hours before launch through a few hours after launch)

The weeks leading up to our Beta 3 launch were some of our busiest ones yet. To make the user experience as awesome as possible, RockMelters had several late nights (and some all-nighters). Good thing our office has comfy sofas, bunk beds, and giant bean bags — not to mention a kitchen full of food.

Below, meet the RockMelter who helped add Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications into RockMelt. The red bean bag is always in high demand.

People came in extra early to support the big release. And yes, we’re big fans of yoga balls (we have nine of them scattered throughout the office) and improvised ping pong tables.

The following picture was taken just seconds before Beta 3 is released by the smiling RockMelter! All of our hard work the past few weeks came down to this one moment. Some people were a little more nervous than others, but everybody was excited and looking forward to the launch.

We even hired “professional” photographers to capture this historic moment. We also had photographers capturing photographers capturing this moment. In the background you’ll notice our love for avant-garde blox structures, lava lamps, and standing desks.

 

The line was long but boy, the wait was worth it. The crepes were so tasty that everybody kept returning for second and third helpings. Company favorites included bananas, strawberries, and nutella crepes; ham, egg, and cheese crepes; and tomatoes, chicken, and pesto crepes.

Thanks for trying Beta 3! We can’t wait to show you what’s coming next.

p.s. if you’d like to help us change how people browse the web, check out our open positions here.

Staying in touch with friends is now easier than ever with RockMelt Beta 3, our most exciting update yet!

For this major update, we’ve partnered with Facebook to give you the best possible browsing experience. Available for download and upgrade today, RockMelt Beta 3 adds over 30 features, including better Facebook chat, more Facebook integration, and a streamlined facebook.com experience on RockMelt.

Our goal is to build a browser that makes surfing the web better, easier, and more fun. We couldn’t be more excited to work with Facebook to make social a core browser component and to continue the browser revolution. By the way, Beta 3 is just a preview of what’s to come later!

You can download RockMelt Beta 3 here. We can’t wait to see what you think.

Happy browsing!


Here’s what’s new:

Your love of chat on RockMelt is loud and clear! Since nearly 40% of RockMelters chat every day, we wanted to make the chat experience even better. In Beta 3, we’ve completely re-designed the Friend Edge with three new features so it’s even easier to stay in touch.

Your Friend Edge can now be expanded to a full buddy list complete with names and search. This expanded view makes it a cinch to find any friend and manage your Friend Edge. Highly recommended if you have a high-resolution screen!

You can now pick which side of RockMelt you want your Friend Edge – on the left or the right. If you’re used to chatting on facebook.com, you’ll feel right at home with your App Edge on the left and your Friend Edge on the right.

To make browsing through friends even easier, you can now use your mouse to scroll through friends in your Friend Edge. Scrolling can be done whether your Friend Edge is fully expanded or collapsed.

One of our most popular requests has been to let you manage Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications right in RockMelt. Now you can!

In Beta 3, you can confirm Friend Requests, send and reply to Messages, and see all your Notifications (along with the posts or links that you’re getting Notifications for). Like on facebook.com, these are located next to your profile picture in the top left corner of your RockMelt for quick access.

We’re excited to announce that, by working together with Facebook, we’ve streamlined your facebook.com experience! You’ll now only have one set of Friend Requests, Messages, Notifications, friend lists, and chats when you visit facebook.com – the ones right in RockMelt. Additionally, chats you initiate on facebook.com will open RockMelt chat windows. We hope you like this is a unified effort to make your browsing experience even better.

○ Brand New Friend Edge

• Expandable View with names and favorite status
• Scrollable
• Swappable Friend Edge and App Edge
• Friend search
• Chat status can now be changed to online / offline even easier
• Option to hide offline friends
• Improved context menu when right-clicking friends
• Unified View of Friends: Favorite Friends and Other Friends now shown together
• Drag-and-drop to remove or add friends to Favorites

○ Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications

• Confirm and reject Friend Requests
• View and reply to Messages
• See Notifications and the associated item of interest (status updates, links, or photos)

○ Unified Facebook.com and RockMelt Experience

• Universal chat experience from RockMelt – no more duplicate chat windows and friend lists
• Initiating chats on Facebook.com will open chats in RockMelt
• Universal Friend Requests, Messages and Notifications right in RockMelt – no more duplicates on Facebook.com

○ New Facebook App with Photo Album Viewer
○ Quick access to your own Facebook Profile
○ Better Chat

• Previous chat history now shown when chatting with friends
• Improved notification when chats are received
• Simplified chat window

○ Easy status updater
○ One-click Quiet Mode button
○ Twitter: Option for growl and taskbar notifications for incoming tweets
○ (Mac) Scrollable App Edge so you can get updates from even more Apps
○ (Mac) Share Improvements

• Quick image picker - just click on the embedded image to see all the ones that can be selected
• Link titles and descriptions can now be edited

• Improved Twitter App reliability and performance
• Improved syncing for App Edge contents and updates
• More robust sharing
• Improved spell check reliability
• More consistent App Edge updates
• Retain search engine preferences
• Causes of several crashes