Social web browser RockMelt started rolling out RockMelt Beta 2 on Friday. The new version is the “most significant update” yet to the Chromium-based web browser and it touts better chat, more robust Twitter integration and a new “view later” feature.

RockMelt co-founder Eric Vishria walked us through the new updates and offered us some information about who is using RockMelt and where the browser is headed.

When RockMelt launched in November 2010, the goal was to create a tool that would integrate social networks and feeds directly in the web browser. Our first brush with the browser left us with a lukewarm impression, but the concept, at the very least remained interesting.

Tools like Flock and RockMelt face an uphill battle of balancing social functionality without making the core browsing experience sub-optimal.

In that regard, Vishria told us that the team spent a lot of time looking at ways to make the interface and the interactions more seamless and less confusing. The biggest UI overhaul is related to RockMelt’s popular integrated Facebook Chat feature.

Chat Gets Better

Vishria told us that RockMelt users use the built-in chat tool at least three times a day. With RockMelt Beta 2, the team has added a new chat bar at the bottom of the browser window. This bar lets users stay involved in multiple conversations at once. Each conversation can be parked in its own window or chat bar tab when users are browsing the web.

The best feature is the new notifications — very similar to Growl notifications in Mac OS X. When a chat window is minimized, users can still keep tabs on what is happening by way of an unobtrusive overlay.

Better Twitter Client

RockMelt says that 50% of its users have added at least one Twitter account to the browser. One of the biggest areas of user feedback was related to the Twitter app that RockMelt uses. Thus, RockMelt redesigned the app to provide a better interface and to more deeply integrate into the Twitter API.

The new Twitter app supports the real-time Twitter API and also supports Twitter search.

View it Later

Vishria told us that users are increasingly using bookmarks less — or not bookmarking content at all. Instead many users choose to save links to services like Instapaper, Readability, Pinboard and Read It Later. The advantage here is that content can be accessed for later consumption, which seems to be what users are doing more of, rather than bookmarking full sites for future reference.

Inspired by some of these services, RockMelt decided to build the ability to view a site, article, video or update later. A new View Later button was added next to the bookmark icon in the URL window. Clicking this icon will add a URL to a running list tagged “View Later.” This list can be accessed via the RockMelt App Edge in its own app.

The service differs from tools like Instapaper in that it isn’t just for text, it can be used for videos, music, status updates — anything in the browser.

Right now there isn’t a way to export any of that View Later data to other services or to integrate other services with View Later. Vishria told us that the company is planning on addressing some of those issues in the future, but for now wants a solid browser-integrated experience.

I do hope the company considers taking advantage of the Instapaper or Readability APIs and at least importing the content from those services to View Later. That could be a killer feature in its own right.

The new RockMelt is based on Chromium 10, which means it should be faster and more stable. The RockMelt team is pushing out the update to a few users now and everyone should have access to Beta 2 by next week.

RockMelt still might be the right browser for me, but for its userbase, the new version looks like a solid update with some compelling new features.

Have you used RockMelt? What do you think of custom browsers?

More About: Browsers, facebook chat, RockMelt, software, twitter

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These unique soap designs not only allow you to feel fresh and clean, but they are also quite nice decorative additions for our bathrooms. The ingredients in some of them are truly unique too. The first one is the Beer Soap. It is a moisturizing soap made from real beer. Don’t worry, they guarantee that you won’t smell like beer. Next is the Popsicle Soap. It is as colorful and sweet smelling as a real popsicle that you might enjoy eating on warm days. I bet your friends would love getting a soapsicle as a gift.

If you like popcorn, you will definitely like the next one on the list. This soap is made with Shea butter and shaped like popcorn, and it’s appropriately called Popcorn Soap. These come in a retro bag that contains 25 pieces of realistic looking popcorn made from Shea butter. Last but not the least is the Fortune Cookie Soap. It is a 100% natural soap with a real fortune inside. They come in a set of six fortune cookie soaps per pack. They look so realistic that you might be tempted to take a bite. So the next time you reach for your regular soap, think again. Why not try any of the ones featured here and make bath time a more enjoyable and unique experience?

Image Credits: [Lana K / Shutterstock] [Beer Soap] [Soapsicles] [Popcorn Soap] [Fortune Cookie]

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Study outcomes showed a comparable number of participants viewing top sponsored links (~90 percent) across both search engines. However, these participants spent 22 percent more time looking at Google’s top sponsored links than Bing’s. For right sponsored links, Bing and Google didn’t significantly differ in the amount of attention.

Comparing sponsored links on top to those on the right in general, the study found the "eye hit rate" on the top to be at least three times higher and gaze time to be at least five times longer than on the sponsored links on the right.

Before making the first click, participants spent 27 percent more time looking at organic search results on Google than on Bing.

"While more gaze time is good for sponsored results, the opposite is true for organic results," said Aga Bojko, User Centric’s Chief Scientist.

"Taking longer to make a decision and scanning more results may suggest lower perceived search results relevancy on Google. According to past research, users tend to scan search results until they find the first suitable link to click, so more time spent on Google could mean it took longer to find a link worth clicking."  
 

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I’ve been talking to co-founder Glen Drury, previously CEO of Kelkoo, about the concept.

In one sentence, what is Keynoir: 

Keynoir is London’s new private members lifestyle club, bringing our members luxury lifestyles at discounts of 50%-90% from fantastic restaurants, hotels, spas, events and personal services.

What problem does Keynoir solve? 

Many people go out to drinks and dinner at least three times per week, buy lunch five days per week and on a conservative estimate, that is worth roughly £800 per month. If you then throw on top any pampering, spas, gym memberships, shows, events and little treats, and it all adds up to a significant amount of cash.  

These young and affluent people really do love to go out and to reward themselves with fun and self-indulging experiences, and rightfully so! They work really hard to achieve their career, personal and family goals. So, free membership to our club ensures that their money goes farther than ever before, and helps them upgrade their lifestyle purchases.

When and why did you launch it? 

We launched the London web site in April 2010. The focus of the website is to bring you one thing to think about at a time. Both Phil and I have spent years working within a ‘search’ environment, and wanted to bring out something that really relied on serendipity.

We want the business to focus on one offer at a time, and be like a little sugar rush when you get the email in the morning.

We have launched the Facebook site in May where we offer our members more chance to be social, including games, seeing past deals, and talking to each other about the great experiences they are having. Last week we ran a competition where 1,500 new members tagged them selves in a photo to win a table for four at Sketch.

Who is your target audience? 

Today our target audience is 25-45 year old Londoners, we will shortly be expanding our great offer to other European cities.  The average member is earning in excess of £50,000 per year, and is looking to really make their money work hard for them. In addition, we are finding that our offers are attracting the corporate entertainment spend, as more and more professionals are joining.

Running a members club is turning out to be great fun, as they are already leading the company to provide extra services and offers.

What are your immediate goals? 

Grow our membership base and our great offers to London. We are really getting some traction with our partner merchants, as an example, last week we were able to send a top London restaurant 400 new diners with a 24 hour promotion.  

On the membership side, we are attracting significant numbers of new members, and they are surprising us with their willingness to spend regularly on the offers we bring them.

What were the biggest challenges involved in building Keynoir?  

Simplicity is the biggest challenge, most sites default to giving more and more choice, until it feels like noise, we are working very hard to make our site and member experience very simple. 

Our focus needs to remain on providing great experiences from both well known luxury brands as well as those that should be well know. As an example, I hadn’t heard of the Hempel Hotel before our London team partnered with them to bring a great offer at a significant discount. Now, I’m very sure that it should be among not only the coolest brands in London, but should also be one of the best known.

How will the company make money?  

The great thing about Keynoir is that we are bringing performance marketing to the local advertising world. In the same way as online has revolutionised advertising going from pay per thousand to pay for acquisition, we only make money if the advertorial on the day brings customers to the merchant partner.  

The merchant partners are finding that Keynoir members are more generous than the average customers, which means that the small commission we charge makes Keynoir one of the most effective forms of customer acquisition there is.

What is your pricing model? 

Today, membership to the club is free, but we may introduce charges as we grow. We do our best to bring our members discounts above 50%, only take a fee if the minimum number of customers agree in advance to purchase

Who is in the team and what does it look like?

The founders are myself and Phil Wilkinson, ex founder Kelkoo and e-commerce boffin, and Jan Riem, finance and international growth expert. We have 12 other early employees who all bring their own unique flair to the company too.

Where would you like to be in one, three and five years’ time? 

Keynoir will be a success in three to five years if we really deliver on our customer promise: 

We aim to blow users away with exceptionally fun experiences at extraordinarily low prices, which will always exceed customer expectations. We will occasionally seek customer feedback and ideas to ensure that their experience of Keynoir is never anything less than perfect.

Ultimately, we don’t want to be the biggest, just the best. We believe that if we deliver on our promise, our members will help us to reach new heights of excellence every day.