What if your Internet browser showed you what it thought you wanted to see online, instead of waiting for you to direct it?
That is what Rockmelt's new browser for the iPad does. The browser, which became available in the App Store Thursday, does not look like a browser at all. Instead, it is full of boxes showing you things you might like from around the Web.
“The Internet is vast,†said Eric Vishria, Rockmelt's co-founder and chief executive. “We are trying to take the portion of the Internet that is interesting to you and pull it together.â€
Rockmelt landed with a splash when it introduced its desktop browser in 2010, in large part because it was founded and financed by Netscape alumni who know a thing or two about browsers. They include Marc Andreessen, Netscape's co-founder and a Rockmelt investor, and Tim Howes, a Netscape executive and Rockmelt's co-founder.
Yet it has been slow to get traction. Four million people have downloaded it, the company says, and a few hundred thousand of them use it daily. That is tiny compared with usage of the biggest browsers - Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox. But still, Mr. Vishria said, active users seem to like it, keeping it open seven hours and 15 minutes a day.
The idea was that people need a browser for the social era, with updates from friends and social networks incorporated. The new iPad version goes a step further, filling the blank space in a typical browser with images, posts and articles from around the Web. Browsers should incorporate new visual interfaces on sites like Fab and Pinterest and new ways of communication on sites like Facebook and Twitter, Mr. Vishria said.
“If you think about how we all use the Web today, it's radically different from 10 years ago,†he said. “But browsers are the same dumb window they were.â€
People log in to Rockmelt's new iPad browser with their Facebook credentials. Over time, Rockmelt le arns what people are interested in based on what they click and share, to construct a stream of content, and users can manually add feeds as well. They can save tabs or pages to read later, and those tabs or pages are stored in the cloud for access from another device.
Though it sounds similar to other apps like Flipboard and Zite, Mr. Vishria said it was different because it tapped into the whole Internet and there was a search bar to travel elsewhere on the Web. Other companies, like Google, are also trying to fold social networking information into Web results and show people what it thinks they want before they ask for it.
Still, it is unclear that people want to slap together a browser, social media and their favorite sites. It can be distracting to see an avalanche of content every time you open a browser. And while some people do not even know what a browser is, they have an option to download one different from the one their computer or iPad came with.
That is one reason Rockmelt's users so far are young people who have grown up online, Mr. Vishria said. Two-thirds are under 25 and 83 percent are under 35.
