The Rooms application , which gives the user the ability to create discussion spaces on the Internet about things that interest them, and to invite others to them, without necessarily using real names - thus reviving the "heroic" older eras of the Internet, with forums, message boards and chatrooms.
Rooms, an app from Facebook Creative Labs, is available on iOS since yesterday in the US, UK and some other English-speaking countries.
As stated in a relevant post on the Rooms blog, "one of the magical features of the early days of the web was connecting with people you would never otherwise meet in your daily life. Forums, message boards and chatrooms were meeting points for people who didn't necessarily share geographic locations or social connections, but had something in common. Places where what you said mattered more than who you were and who you knew. Today, as we spend more and more time on our phones, primarily to communicate with friends and family, the role of the Internet as a 'third' party has begun to fade.".
A “room” is essentially a feed of photos, videos, and text, not unlike what you’d find on Instagram or Facebook, with a central theme determined by whoever created the “room.” Early adopters have already created such spaces for a variety of topics, from home cooking to parkour.
“Room creators can also control almost everything around them. Rooms is designed to be a flexible, creative tool. You can change the text and emoji on the ‘like’ button, add a cover photo and dominant colors, create custom ‘pinned’ messages, customize member permissions, and even set whether or not users can link to your content on the web. In the future, we will continue to add more customizable features and ways to ‘tweak’ your ‘room’,” it adds.
The creators of Rooms emphasize that one of their favorite features of the Internet is the ability for everyone to be whoever they want to be. “We want the ‘rooms’ you create to be liberating…from unique obsessions and unconventional hobbies to personal finance and health issues, you can ‘celebrate’ the sides of yourself that you don’t always show your friends.” And for this reason, it is emphasized, the user can use any name they want, just like in the forums and message boards of the old days. “You can even create different identities for different topics,” it is stated.
Finally, the blog post states that the initial focus is on working closely with a small set of community builders to build successful communities. “If you think your room has the potential to become one of these, we’d love to hear how we can help. Send us an email at team@rooms.me, along with an invitation to your room and a paragraph about why you think your room has the potential to be a meaningful community for specific types of people.”
The Rooms page on the App Store is here.
It is noted that at the beginning of the month, in a NY Times article, there was talk of a stand-alone application from the "king" of social networks that would allow users to interact within Facebook without having to use their real names.
Source: naftemporiki.gr
