This unveiling comes on the heels of what seems like a retreat from Messagner, the FB app for using the sites Chat feature which has undergone scrutiny since it was released and forced upon users. It appears now, users can once again message friends through the native Facebook app.
Rooms, Facebook's much-anticipated anonymous social app, hit the iTunes store last week. The app allows people to create a "room" on any topic, similar to a message board. The room can then be customized with colors, icons and photos. Text, photos and videos can be posted to a room's feed, creating an ongoing multimedia conversation.
Rooms, Facebook's much-anticipated anonymous social app, hit the iTunes store last week. The app allows people to create a "room" on any topic, similar to a message board. The room can then be customized with colors, icons and photos. Text, photos and videos can be posted to a room's feed, creating an ongoing multimedia conversation.
The goal, according to the app's blog, is to transfer the utility of message boards to the mobile world.
The app embraces anonymity, allowing users to sign in with "whatever name makes you feel most comfortable and proud." Users can create different names for each room they join.
Rooms can be shared through invitations that look like QR codes. You take a picture of the invitation, and the app scans your recent photos for the QR code and signs you into the room.
The invitation process means each room can be as public or private as its owner and members wish. The invite codes can be posted anywhere online or share just among a select group of people.
Each room can also be customized to a certain level of privacy, including whether or not the room's post can be discovered on search.
Going Nostalgic
The app, which was created by a team led by Josh Miller over the last six months, introduces a new twist on the chat rooms of yesteryear. To anyone born before 1990, Rooms will feel very familiar. Essentially, it's a retro reboot Web 1.0 platforms where people gathered to discuss their interests or like-minded topics. It's the first Facebook-designed app that has taken a page out of the history books to alter the way we communicate today — to the web we used to have, before Snapchat and Twitter and Facebook itself changed the way we communicated. The similarities are not an accident. Miller says he consulted with the proprietors of Web 1.0 communities while building Rooms in an attempt to capture some of the atavistic intrigue of those early boards while keeping the space safe from trolls and harassers.
Copycat?
Although Facebook claims to have had Rooms in development for quite a long time, other outside developers are claiming Facebook stole this idea. There is a long history of alleged idea-stealing on Facebook's part however we may never know for certain if that is the case here. Damien Rottemberg, an app developer launched his app, Room, in September. That's right, the singular form of room. Both apps are inspired by chat rooms and message boards popular in the early days of the internet. Rottemberg claims he and business partner Frank-David Colon have been developing Room since December, and met with venture capitalists in New York and Silicon Valley in March. Rottemberg applied in March for a trademark for Room, and the application is still pending. Coincidence?
Future of Anonymity on the Internet
The new Facebook app is a place where you can chat with other like-minded people about most anything, from theatrical stage shows to wearable technologies, and because users are not required to use their real name, everyone has the freedom to express themselves in ways they wouldn’t have on the main Facebook app. But at the same time, Facebook has committed to policing these rooms at the lowest level possible and if anything offensive appears within a room—hate speech, threats, spam, or graphic content—moderators or Facebook can take it down. Although this may seem like a powerplay against other popular anonymous message boards like Reddit, due to it's monitoring and policies, Rooms is blazing a new trail for online anonymity. Hopefully this will prove to be a safer trail.
I have only started to dip my toes into these new communities. I look forward to providing a comprehensive review once I've been able to get some hands-on experience.
