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Netscape Founder Backs New Browser
wirelessjb writes to share that after a resounding defeat at the hands of Microsoft in the first major browser war of the mid 1990s, Marc Andreessen is looking to have another go at the market by backing a new startup called "RockMelt." "Mr. Andreessen suggested the new browser would be different, saying that most other browsers had not kept pace with the evolution of the Web, which had grown from an array of static Web pages into a network of complex Web sites and applications. 'There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch,' Mr. Andreessen said.
RockMelt was co-founded by Eric Vishria and Tim Howes, both former executives at Opsware, a company that Mr. Andreessen co-founded and then sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2007 for about $1.6 billion. Mr. Howes also worked at Netscape with Mr. Andreessen."
Netscape's interface was the best
Long live Seamonkey
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
'There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch,' Mr. Andreessen said.
Yeah, I'd build a browser more like... Chrome. Which addressed this issue less than two years ago. Has the web changed a lot in two years?
What's the profit model for this startup? That's the most interesting question, to me.
Terrorist, bomb, al Qaeda, nuclear, yellowcake, kill, assassinate. Carnivore is dead... long live Echelon.
... That is the sound of inevitability... It is the sound of your death... Goodbye, Mr. Andreessen...
Marc: My name... is RockMelt!
The Rockmelt website isn't too interesting. It's a bit presumptuous to assume it will get a /.ing. Perhaps it is suffering from the Marketing Dept assuming people will come back later in the hope of revelation, rather than them saying "ooh nice logo" and then instantly forgetting about them and moving along.
I'd build a browser more like... Chrome.
I wouldn't. I'd dump most of the custom GUI features in Chrome and Firefox, and quit screwing around with the stuff around the browser window. It's the stuff inside the browser window that you actually care about, not whether the icons are grey metal or jello blue.
Tim Howes is also the inventor of the LDAP Protocol, when he was a grad student at UMich studying DAP and DIT under X.500 of OSI fame.
That article was so light on on content all that we can summarize is that RockMelt is another browser. A browser with a creative name, that has a "browser rock star" who is backing it, and one that has some new "plug-in" features with Facebook. So why am I lacking any excitement by this? Correct me if I'm wrong but it's not like Andreessen is a Steve Job's visionary or anything.
It'll have built in twitter and facebook access. Totally social networkitized
What does he mean that most browsers aren't keeping pace with the web? By definition, browsers define the pace of the web. If your browser can't see it then it doesn't exist yet.
There's no one out there making a good living by creating webpages that browsers can't display.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Tell me Mr. Andreessen, what good is a new browser, if you are unable to . . . ?
You know it makes sense, a little reminder from jointm1k.
or I am going to kick your ass!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I'm pretty sure someone already made Flock. :)
"Little else is known about RockMelt, and Mr. Vishria was unwilling to discuss it. "We are at very early stages of development," Mr. Vishria said. "Talking about it at this stage is not useful."
Good thing it was on Slashdot where nothing is useful.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I just checked the date, I thought for sure it must be April 1st.
Marc Andreessen is jumping into the browser wars again? What's next, Ford announces a "re-imagined" Edsel?
I did some digging around and found an e-mail to a google group from a guy settings up RockMelts site:
http://www.mail-archive.com/scalr-discuss@googlegroups.com/msg02866.html
The same guy asked questions on the Chromium mailing list, "helping a co-worker get the chromium src".
http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev/browse_thread/thread/105e19e8d4f6c650?pli=1
Probably nothing, but could be something...
Someone has forgotten the first rule of Loudcloud.
Breakfast served all day!
The big story here is Mr. Andreessen is backing a browser product, a market thought to be dead and buried in terms of profit. He was profiled in Forbes a while back and his name resonates with the financial types. He has credibility with investors because he called Facebook and Twitter (among others) as a buy pretty early in their lifecycles. Corollary, the Forbes article mentions that he has a crap-ton of OPM to invest now, so he can afford to take some long-shots. -ellie
PAGE FUCKING ONE:
Today, most of what we use the web for on a day-to-day basis aren't just web pages, they're applications. Wouldn't it be great, then, to start from scratch, and design something based on the needs of today's web applications and today's users?
--Google, 9/2/2008
And from today's FA:
But Mr. Andreessen suggested the new browser would be different, saying that most other browsers had not kept pace with the evolution of the Web, which had grown from an array of static Web pages into a network of complex Web sites and applications. "There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch," Mr. Andreessen said.
--Marc Andreessen, 8/13/2009
It's as if he fell asleep reading the comic, dreamt about it, and woke up thinking he had an original idea. Then again, TFA says he said "most other browsers", so maybe he's specifically excluding Chrome? :-)
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