Rockmelt Blog

We’ve been continually refining Rockmelt for Web since the launch a month ago. Today, we added a number of features that our users have been asking for:

Our users tell us they keep returning to Rockmelt to see the best stuff on the Internet that they don’t see elsewhere. One of their favorite tricks is to cut straight to the funniest stories by going to “lol” in Explore. They also check out what their friends are talking about in the Friends tab.

Tell us what you think - we’d love to hear it! Feedback@rockmelt.com is always a great way to contact us.

P.S. Look at this - the new iOS update has a third column of beautiful story tiles on the iPad in landscape view. See all the details here.

Apr 11

Introducing Rockmelt for Web

We love the web. It is the greatest collection of information and fun in the history of humanity. What started as a destination for academics to exchange papers, has now permeated into every aspect of our lives–delivering news, information, entertainment, communication, collaboration, and so much more.

We founded Rockmelt to make the web more useful by giving people a better way to navigate its awesomeness. What started as a desktop browser with thin edges has evolved. Over the past few months, we’ve released an iOS app that re-imagines Rockmelt as a beautiful stream of the web content you love, from your favorite sites and people, while still letting you go anywhere on the web. The incredible product reviews, the amount of content consumption, and the amount of sharing we’ve seen has spurred us on.

Today, we’re very excited to bring these ideas back to the desktop, but in an entirely new way - actually, an entirely old way - through a website.

Rockmelt.com is now a visual stream of the web; content from your favorite sites, your favorite people, and a dash of crazy stuff you never would have discovered. It’s all highly personalized and pushed to you. It’s social; your friends make your experience better, just like you do theirs. It’s interactive; you can pivot on people and hashtags, @mention friends, and explore categories and sources. And, we’ve pushed the limits of HTML5 and Javascript, to deliver a highly interactive app-quality experience in a website.

We’re launching as an invite-only beta, for now. We want to work out the kinks and make sure we can handle the load before we unleash it on the Internet at large. But we’d love for you to give it a try. Sign up, and we’ll get it to you as quickly as we can. If you’re already a Rockmelt user (either the browser or the iOS app), don’t worry - you’re already invited!

An Update on the Existing Rockmelt Browser

Phew! Big day for us. With all the news, we know you’ve got questions, especially if you are a Rockmelt desktop browser user. Luckily, we’ve got answers.

First, we still love you! All existing Rockmelt users are invited to try our new product–Rockmelt for Web. It’s a totally new way to experience your favorite sites, and to discover new sites.

We founded Rockmelt to make the web more useful by giving you a better way to navigate. Our initial approach was to re-imagine the browser. The Rockmelt browser disrupted and influenced the market in many ways. Logging into browsers, interacting with friends, and sharing to social networks straight from the browser are all features we pioneered that are now in Chrome, Firefox, and others. We’re very proud of this.

But distributing a desktop browser is hard and expensive (especially if you don’t have an operating system or the world’s most trafficked website to promote it). We knew that when we started. What we didn’t know was how much time we’d spend keeping up with Chromium (the open source foundation of Chrome, upon which Rockmelt is based). What started out as 10% of our time soon became 50%–taking away cycles we needed to spend doing the innovative stuff that made us different.

On the positive side, when we dug into what people loved about Rockmelt, we saw an opportunity to deliver the content from people’s favorite sites and friends in a much more compelling, streamlined way.

Our mission remains unchanged. Our approach is different. The new Rockmelt still aims to deliver the web content you love from your favorite sites and new ones you may have never found. It gives you new ways to interact with your friends. And, the new approach allows us to focus much more on delivering a unique and useful experience without the overhead of building a full browser.

Existing users can continue to use it, but at some point in the next several months we will end-of-life the browser. Well before that point comes, we will give you plenty of notice and help you transition all your stuff like bookmarks. And if you’re wondering, we’d happily recommend Chrome as a replacement. In the meantime, we hope you’ll give the new Rockmelt for Web a try and let us know what you think.

A New 3.0 App Release

There’s a huge mobile update for a 3.0 release available now for download in the Apple App Store.

We’ve packed so much goodness into this 3.0 release. We’ve made it a lot faster—TWO times as fast! You should feel the speed right away and especially when new content loads and when you navigate around. You’ll also notice we treated ourselves to a facelift—a splash of color in the navigation and side bars. We think it makes us look a lot younger and we definitely feel happier. Speaking of happier, check out the all pictures view, which is exactly what you’d expect. Just the pictures, all the time.

We even stepped up our social game with @mentioning and #tags. Call out your favorite stories to your Rockmelt and Facebook friends. Hashtag things you’re interested in. #Put #a #hashtag #on #everything and then @mention your @bestfriend. Click on the hashtags to see all the stories across Rockmelt with that tag.

Mar 21

Google Reader Importer on Rockmelt for iOS

It’s hard to part ways and say goodbye to Google Reader, but Rockmelt for iOS would like to be that shiny new replacement.

We’ll deliver exactly what you’ll be missing and fill voids you never knew you had because we are more than your average RSS feed reader. Rockmelt is chockfull of content. We poll 350K unique sites on behalf of our users and more are added weekly. You can follow your friends, react to stories, and discover great new content.

Feb 08

Browse with Friends and Much More!

With the latest release, we have a new, awesome way to find your friends. When you browse with your friends, you’ll introduce them to great new stories, photos, or videos. When you wtf? something, they’ll see the story and your reaction in their feed. If they react to the same story, and we bet they will, you’ll be notified! Browsing the Internet is not a one man job.

Find your friends from Facebook, Twitter, or your contacts who are already using Rockmelt. The “Find Friends” screen is under Settings > More.

Don’t forget to also check out our Pocket integration, adding of any RSS feed on the Internet for iPhone, swipe to hide anything and our new emote animation. It shakes, it moves, it’s begging for a tap!

Dec 24

A Holiday Poem for You

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the web
new releases of apps were starting to ebb.
However, one company chose to surprise
and present iPhone users with a feast for the eyes.
Rockmelt for iPhone is officially done -
so now, you can download and join in the fun.
The best of the web now fits in your hand,
as well as the most awesome tales in the land.
More style, more shopping, more technology news,
more 9GAG, more YouTube - more whatever you choose!
So hurry yourself to the App Store today,
one click - it’s downloaded and you’re on your way.
We know that you’ll love it, get ready to swoon.
(Android, Windows 8, and desktop versions out soon).

Dec 20

Rockmelt for iPhone-Download it today!

This holiday season, we’re excited to introduce the new Rockmelt experience for the iPhone.

While we brought over all the great content and features from the iPad you love - the endless visual stream, pivoting to categories, sources and people, lightweight sharing of the best content, we had to redesign several areas to fit the phone. For example, we knew content had to show up even faster, so you can dip in and out quicker. And because you’re more likely to be on a cellular connection, we had to be sensitive to your data plan. Perhaps most interestingly, we had to tweak gestures and navigation so the whole app could be usable with just your thumb.

That’s right - with Rockmelt you can browse the whole Internet with just your opposable thumb. Tap a story to read it, swipe it to the left to close it, or swipe it to the right to save it for later. Thumbs up!

We also focused on updating three areas:

Emoting
We know you love to share the great stuff you find on Rockmelt. And Rockmelt emotes (the LOLs, Aww’s, Hmm’s..) are more popular than sharing to Facebook, Twitter or email - in fact, on average you are emoting 4 things a day! So for the iPhone, we made emoting more accessible and more fun.

Gestures
Directly manipulating tiles is a big part of exploring the web on Rockmelt. Want to keep a story for later - swipe it right to the sidebar; want to get rid of something - swipe it left to hide; want to read more - tap on it; done with a web page - swipe left to close. We’ve reworked and refined these to work even better (for your thumb) on the iPhone.

Sync
Lots of you have an iPad and an iPhone so now, if you login on your iPhone and iPad, everything syncs! Find something cool on your phone you want to come back to when you have more time on your iPad? Just swipe it to the right and it will show up on all your devices with Rockmelt.

Many more bug fixes and performance enhancements were also part of this release. Click here to download and start exploring the best of the web.

Nov 30

Timeline, Email Login and Videos come to Rockmelt for iPad

We’ve been working hard to keep up with your feedback. You can download the latest update of Rockmelt for iPad, available now in the App Store. The latest goodness includes:

Facebook Timeline Integration

You’ve already emoted (LOLs, likes, wtfs, awws, wants and hmms) and commented on the best articles, pictures and videos on the web. Now, if you’ve connected your Facebook account with Rockmelt, the original article, your emote and comment will be shared to your Timeline. You’ll be the first to share the next Gangnam-style video phenomenon on the Internet machine! Your friends will thank you!

If you’d rather keep your emotes and comments only within Rockmelt, simply go to Social Accounts from Settings and uncheck the “Publish to timeline” box. You can activate and de-activate your social sharing preferences anytime you want.

Videos, Videos, Videos

Watch videos in your stream by tapping directly on the play button on the tile. Tap the full screen icon to maximize the player and when you’re done, just pinch to close the window. You’ll be right where you left off in the infinite stream of content goodness. We have 165 video channels available on Rockmelt so hurry up and add in those yummy video feeds.

Email Login

As an alternative to logging in with Facebook or Twitter, you can now login via email. Choose a user name, add a profile picture, and describe yourself in 120 characters or less. Pick a cool user name so people can @mention you in their comments. Don’t forget to connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts to keep up-to-date with what your friends have shared on other networks.

More Gestures, More Fun

Navigating the web with simple gestures is just plain awesome. We’ve added more gestures to make it even more fun. Swipe to the right to save a tile for later. Swipe to the left to get rid of it for good. Tap the Rockmelt “R” to go back to the top. Sashay those fingers down the Main Street of the world wide web!

Nov 08

New Updates to Rockmelt for iPad

Rockmelters - thanks for trying out our new app! We’ve loved all of your positive support as well as your input on what we need to improve. We released our first update earlier this week, and addressed a bunch of your feedback. Updates include:

See Your Followers and Followees

Now, when you go to your profile, simply tap on “followers” or “following” under your bio, and you can see all the people you follow and those who follow you.

This works on other people’s pages too. You can click on anyone’s profile picture, pivot to their profile, and browse through the sources and people they’re following. If you see something that you like, that you aren’t currently following, simply tap the blue “follow” button to start seeing that content in your stream.

Easier Content Personalization

Your Rockmelt is your Rockmelt and now it’s easier than ever to make it exactly how you want it.

Better Images and More Images Too

Let’s face it. The images make browsing in Rockmelt a great experience. We’re now cropping fewer images, so they will appear larger in your stream. We’re also including more images.