Facebooks Future: As A Social Browser?

As the Facebook juggernaut continues to spread its social media tentacles to far reaches of the world, picking up millions of users along the way, some intriguing rumors have emerged about it backing a company called RockMelt. RockMelt are developing a new internet browser that Techcrunch speculate could actually turn out to be a next generation "Facebook Browser".

Interestingly enough I overheard one of the speakers at a recent social media conference in London stating he believed Facebook's future was as a portal to the rest of the web. In this model you would effectively browse the web through Facebook, harnessing all its usability functions (share, comment, bookmark). Now this model has been explored to some extent, with companies developing browser plugin toolbars but a Facebook browser would take web surfing integration to a new level (take a peak at the Techcrunch article to see some of the features they'd like to see in a social browser).

As Facebook continues its drive for worldwide ubiquity this could well turn out to be the next stage in its evolution. If it could effectively leverage its popularity to drive people to a new Facebook, social internet browser it could make itself even more essential to most peoples browsing experience than it already is and, therefore, even more powerful.