Los Angeles — In an attempt to enter the most competitive web segment, popular social media giant Facebook is partnering with RockMelt, everyone’s favorite social web browser, that would integrate the social network’s features more deeply and widen its presence on the net to a more social Web browsing experience.
The two companies revealed their alliance Tuesday that brings Facebook features into the frame of Rockmelt’s browser, similar to a Google search box, so users can now make friend requests, chat, or send messages to their Facebook contacts no matter what site they are visiting on the web.
RockMelt, the latest enterprise to get a big breakthrough from Facebook’s brain power has an in-built functions like chat and a friends list. The browser, which is available for download, contains more customizable Facebook chat integration and a built-in manager for friend requests, messages and notifications.
Facebook has also made a slight modification to its site. Through the collaboration effort, users of RockMelt’s browser will now be able to take their Facebook friends along for the ride as they surf the Web, even more so than they have been able to with RockMelt’s previous update.
Moreover, when RockMelt users are on Facebook.com, the browser enables users to check friend requests, message and notifications, and also use Facebook’s chat functionality while viewing external websites, creating higher engagement rates and, potentially, a much richer set of user data if either company decides to monitor users’ web browsing habits. Also, when a user begins a Facebook chat while on Facebook.com, it will open a RockMelt chat window.
“We provide people a way to share and communicate with their friends wherever they are,” Eric Vishria, RockMelt’s co-founder and CEO, quoted as saying by The New York Times. “Over time, you will see a lot of product innovation come out of the partnership with Facebook.”
“Our goal is not to reconstruct the web inside Facebook, but to make it easier for Facebook users to bring their friends with them as they browse the web,” says Facebook’s director of platform, Ethan Beard.
Beard said Facebook chose to work with RockMelt because of its focus on social, but said the company is open to partnering with browser giants like Mozilla, Microsoft, and Google.
“We would be excited to work with any and all browser manufacturers to make them social,” he added.
Though Facebook is not investing any funds in RockMelt, Facebook initiated the collaboration and devoted months of engineering time to it.
It is “an alliance made in geek heaven,” said Ben Horowitz from venture capital firm Andreesseen Horowitz, which has backed both companies.
“Facebook brings us the people-centric Internet and Rockmelt is the people-centric browser,” he said. “It is hard to imagine a more logical deal.”
But product innovation, as The Times describes, is not what RockMelt needs the most. Although the RockMelt browser boasts only a minuscule percentage of marketshare, some 56% of its user base is 25 or under, and 81 per cent of them are 34 and younger, meaning once RockMelt picks up its user numbers and is ready to make money, it could become rather attractive to advertisers. One possible revenue stream for them could be partnering with search engines and taking a cut from search ads users click on in the browser, Vishria said.
Beard, said there are no plans for helping RockMelt’s distribution.
“We are committed to working with startups like RockMelt that are transforming their industries by designing products to be social centric from day one,” he said in a statement.
Nevertheless, an alliance with the kings of social media at Facebook certainly cannot hurt. A top Facebook executive, Jonathan Heiliger, was among the first 100 RockMelt users, before the browser even launched publicly.
Interestingly, this partnership with RockMelt is the latest in a string of deals for Facebook, after it announced deep integration with smartphones such as INQ’s Android-based Cloud Touch and HTC’s ChaCha and Salsa handsets, with the latter including designated Facebook buttons.