10 posts and columns on Rockmelt

No Longer a One-Man Shop, Read It Later Raises $2.5M

in Media on July 26, 2011 at 12:00 pm PT

The informatively named content-saving start-up Read It Later, which for most of its four years has been a one-man labor of love and ramen, has raised Series A funding of $2.5 million from Foundation Capital, Baseline Ventures, Google Ventures, Founders Collective and various angels.
ReadItLater

RockMelt Raises $30M More for Social Browser. But Could It Be More Than Social?

in Social on June 28, 2011 at 9:00 pm PT

RockMelt tonight is announcing it has raised $30 million in Series B funding, a considerable amount for a company with just hundreds of thousands of users and gigantic and fast-innovating competitors.
RockMeltFacebook

Qwiki and RockMelt Swear Off Silicon Valley Users…And Make iOS Apps (Video)

in Social on April 20, 2011 at 8:00 am PT

Two young start-ups, both claiming to target a more mainstream user and content consumer than found in Silicon Valley, are this week launching iOS apps. RockMelt, a browser focused on social networking, is launching an iPhone app, while Qwiki, which creates multimedia summaries of information, is debuting an iPad app.

Skyfire Launches "Facebook Edition" for Android

in Social on November 23, 2010 at 9:01 am PT

Skyfire, the innovative mobile browser maker that’s known for its dexterity with Flash video, is launching an upgrade to its Android app today focused on social sharing. The company calls its 3.0 version “Skyfire Facebook edition.”

Wi-Fi as an Ad Unit: Google Pushes Chrome for the Holidays

in Social on November 8, 2010 at 9:33 am PT

For the second year Google is sponsoring in-flight Wi-Fi from mid-November to mid-January as a sort of benevolent gift for holiday travelers. This year, Google’s not just getting passengers to feel warm and fuzzy about its brand at 30,000 feet, it’s using the opportunity to promote a single product: The Chrome browser.

Here's a Better Name for RockMelt: The FaceBrowser (Plus BoomTown's Two-Dude Video)

in News on November 8, 2010 at 9:08 am PT

At the end of this video interview with BoomTown about RockMelt–a new social browser that debuted in beta last night–the two founders politely tried to gloss over my calling it a “Facebook browser.” Except, um, it is. Sure, there are Twitter and other news apps present. And I even like the mantra for RockMelt, which “re-imagines the browser around friends, feeds, and sharing.” But that would be–for the most part right now–friends on Facebook, feeds from Facebook and sharing with Facebook.

After Some Flashy Investing, Is Andreessen Horowitz's Next Move a Big New Fund?

in News on July 12, 2010 at 7:25 am PT

Since it launched almost exactly a year ago with a $300 million fund, the venture firm of Andreessen Horowitz has cut a rather high-profile path through the Silicon Valley investing community. Now, according to sources and after spending about half its kitty, the firm is poised to begin another round of fundraising to further bolster its clout. While it is unclear how much the VC firm will raise, sources expect it to be much more than its first fund.

Exclusive: OutCast's Wennmachers Joins Andreessen Horowitz as Partner

in News on June 14, 2010 at 7:20 pm PT

Margit Wennmachers, one of Silicon Valley’s leading public relations and communications execs, is joining Andreessen Horowitz as a partner. Wennmachers co-founded OutCast Communications. The move will make her one of a handful of women at high-profile venture outfits. At Andreessen Horowitz, she’ll focus on bringing marketing expertise to the firm and its portfolio companies.

Andreessen Horowitz's Ben Horowitz Talks About Fat Start-Ups, Being a New VC and What's Hot and Not!

in News on April 16, 2010 at 8:08 am PT

Yesterday, BoomTown motored down lovely I-280 to meet with (relatively) newly minted VC Ben Horowitz, the other half of the high-profile venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz. Started last summer by the pair–who have worked together since they met not-so-cute at Netscape Communications, with co-founder Marc Andreessen flaming worker bee Horowitz in an email–it’s a $300 million fund that has plunked itself in the middle of just about every hot thing in Silicon Valley and beyond of late. But Horowitz wants to make sure you know there is a difference between hot and good.

Musing About Another Browser, With a Famous Backer

in News on August 14, 2009 at 12:10 am PT

Marc Andreessen’s name is not quite the household word in Silicon Valley it was in the mid-1990s, when he was a wunderkind at Netscape Communications fighting the browser wars against mighty Microsoft. Still, the idea he might get involved in the same market more than a decade later is an intriguing thought.