Rockmelt - A threat to Google?
We blogged about Rockmelt earlier this week, about how it combines web search with the social network known as Facebook.
Since the new browser jumped into beta Monday, the blogosphere has been buzzing with mixed reviews of the new so-called “Facebook Browser.” Given that Google’s biggest competitive threat is arguably Facebook and that Rockmelt is built on Chromium, the real question is what sort of threat Rockmelt represents for Google?
The real downside with RockMelt came when we found out that there was no way to really fine-tune our Facebook contacts. RockMelt allows you to see who is online, and separate out “starred” favorites into a separate list. But then that list is in alphabetical order, and that’s about it.
Rockmelt, of course, is in beta, so we can expect a lot of refinement in the weeks/months to come. But there are concerns already. An easy example? Although I have a Twitter feed in one of the sidebars, when I click the embedded link to “Go to Twitter” it fails to sign me in using the credentials that are providing me the feed.
And to speak on the privacy end:
The real downside with RockMelt came when we found out that there was no way to really fine-tune our Facebook contacts. RockMelt allows you to see who is online, and separate out “starred” favorites into a separate list. But then that list is in alphabetical order, and that’s about it.
Rockmelt, of course, is in beta, so we can expect a lot of refinement in the weeks/months to come. But there are concerns already. An easy example? Although I have a Twitter feed in one of the sidebars, when I click the embedded link to “Go to Twitter” it fails to sign me in using the credentials that are providing me the feed.
And to speak on the privacy end:
It’s one thing to use Facebook extensively; it’s another to let Facebook know everything you do, everywhere you go, and require you to log in to your Facebook account to allow it to capture all of these data.
When we clicked “accept” to let it share information with Facebook, there was that overwhelming creeping feeling of realizing that the dark soul-snatchers gathering our personal information at Facebook were now going to have even more information about us.
That’s enough to at least slow adoption a bit. The Facebook-as-Big-Brother feature is just a bit much, especially when the required login to Rockmelt/Facebook doesn’t even net me some reasonable federation on Facebook-connected websites.
Frankly, it’s too fast for me not to like it and it keeps me out of Facebook and TweetDeck a bit by allowing me to manage my sharing on Twitter and Facebook right from the browser. As the Facebook-Google competition plays out further over the next few months, we’ll see how the browser evolves and if I can stand having Facebook know as much or more about me than Google.
When we clicked “accept” to let it share information with Facebook, there was that overwhelming creeping feeling of realizing that the dark soul-snatchers gathering our personal information at Facebook were now going to have even more information about us.
That’s enough to at least slow adoption a bit. The Facebook-as-Big-Brother feature is just a bit much, especially when the required login to Rockmelt/Facebook doesn’t even net me some reasonable federation on Facebook-connected websites.
Frankly, it’s too fast for me not to like it and it keeps me out of Facebook and TweetDeck a bit by allowing me to manage my sharing on Twitter and Facebook right from the browser. As the Facebook-Google competition plays out further over the next few months, we’ll see how the browser evolves and if I can stand having Facebook know as much or more about me than Google.
