Facebook has introduced Rooms, a new app adding yet another layer to social connections. Rooms isn’t like Facebook, nor is it a skinned version of like Paper. Rooms is a new way to connect and interact, where users create rooms based on interests. Though Facebook is looking back to the early days of the web as inspiration, we’d be remiss not to point out Rooms is a lot like another social service, form a different social provider. It also answers Facebook’s critics on one important front.
It’s not quite anonymous, but forums standalone app Rooms is Facebook’s first product that allows you to ditch your real name. Rooms lets you set up a mobile-only in-app discussion space about any topic, customize the look and moderation settings, set a screen name for the room, and choose who to invite to share text, photos, videos, and comments with others in the Room. It’s a bit like forums inside an Instagram-style vertical feed. Rooms doesn’t require a Facebook account or even an email address to sign up. It employs an innovative QR-code invite system where people take a photo or screenshot of a Room’s code to gain entry.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has dabbling in popular social app concepts pioneered by others. Facebook launched Poke back in December 2012 as a first shot at a Snapchat clone. After Poke went nowhere, it launched Slingshot in June this year.
Rooms lets you share things that might not fit in the News Feeds of your friends, from nerdy niche culture topics to serious discussions about health or other sensitive subjects.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that Facebook was launching an app that allowed anonymity, which isn’t exactly right, but Rooms does allow people to discuss topics in forum-like spaces as the Times wrote.
Along with the idea of connecting “real” people around the world, Facebook released Facebook Connect (now Facebook Login) in 2008, as a way to let its users easily login into other apps and websites, as well as enable those apps to pull various levels of information from users’ profiles. Entire businesses (Lyft, Tinder) were built around Facebook users’ real identities. In addition, people can comment on sites all over the Internet using their Facebook profiles.
But with Rooms, users can shield their names. They can anonymous chat and say whatever they want without it being tied to their identities and potential judgement from others. According to Miller:
One of the things our team loves most about the internet is its potential to let us be whoever we want to be. It doesn’t matter where you live, what you look like or how old you are – all of us are the same size and shape online. This can be liberating, but only if we have places that let us break away from the constraints of our everyday selves. We want the rooms you create to be freeing in this way. From unique obsessions and unconventional hobbies, to personal finance and health-related issues – you can celebrate the sides of yourself that you don’t always show to your friends.
Moreover, giving users free rein to customize the rooms they create (including colors, Like buttons, name, and so on) is a big deal. Unlike MySpace in the early 2000s, Facebook has created a one-size-fits-all design and has stuck to this approach.
If you’re anxious to try Rooms, you’re not alone — and you’re not alone in being unable to download it. Like Paper, Rooms is limited to iOS. Rooms is also on iTunes, but won’t download for many users. Facebook knows about the problem, and is trying to get it sorted out.