• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, October 11, 2012

Despite sounding a lot like RSS 2.0, everyone’s buzzing about a new iPad app from browser maker RockMelt, which pulls in all the content users normally fetch themselves.

“Surfing the Internet can feel like you’re running in circles, constantly checking your favorite sites for updates,” TechCrunch explains. “The RockMelt team believes that content should be delivered, not hunted, so its new browser app for iPad is built around a stream instead of a blank window.”

“The new app foregrounds images and media content, in a tile-like, endlessly streaming visual format,” writes Forbes. As such, “The design brings the inevitable comparison to the Pinterest app … But the Rockmelt app is a browser, not an aggregator of images.”

It its fight for marketshare, “RockMelt’s new browser … will stand out since it looks nothing like a typical Web browser,” ABCNews.com’s Technology Review blog writes.

Still, much of the excitement around RockMelt is due to backing by star VC Marc Andreessen, "a major funder -- and cheerleader -- of RockMelt,” writes Wired.com. (Thanks to Andreessen, Khosla Ventures, Accel, and other investors, the company has so far raised nearly $40 million.)

“For those who don't know about RockMelt, it's a browser that launched in 2010 and remains in beta,” CNet notes.

RockMelt’s latest product is hardly a home run, however. Calling the app “rough around the edges,” GigaOm’s Om Malik writes: “You have an option to use the app in a non-logged in mode, but that allows you only to search and use pre-configured content packages.”