For years, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been trying to fend off a challenge from the open source Mozilla Firefox, while upstarts like Opera, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome have been playing at the margins of the browser wars.
Into that crowded market now enters RockMelt, a venture backed by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, who says the social approach of the new browser mirrors the increasingly social dimension of the Web that will define its evolution over the next decade. RockMelt, under development since 2008, debuted in a limited beta today, boasting integrations with Facebook and Twitter. Datamation takes a look.
Does the world need another browser? The co-creator of the first Internet browser thinks so.
Marc Andreessen, who co-founded Netscape, is a lead investor in RockMelt, a new browser backed by his Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm.
“RockMelt is onto something huge. They’ve rethought the browser around the massive shifts in user behavior that will drive the Web over the next decade,” Andreessen said in a statement.