- Apr 24, 2013
- 1,200
Facebook’s new Rooms app for the iPhone allows users to create chat rooms where they can use any username they like and share photos, videos and text. Photograph: Facebook
Facebook has released a new iPhone app, Rooms, that allows users to create near-anonymous chat rooms like those from the mid-1990s internet relay chat (IRC) systems.
Rooms does not require a Facebook account to use – only an email address to re-login if switching between devices. The app connects users in a pseudo-anonymous fashion to chat about almost anything, away from the main Facebook experience, and is almost a recreation of IRC - but with Facebook’s terms and conditions applied.
Developed in 1988, IRC allowed users to connect anonymously across the internet and exchange simple text-based messages. Unlike message boards, IRC did not rely on a website and browser; instead users installed an app on their computers, such as MS Chat, and connected directly to a server. Later files could be transferred, creating a direct connection between users which marked the beginnings of peer-to-peer filesharing.
To join a Room, users scan a 2D barcode, which can be shared publicly or privately to invite only a small selection of people to chat. Moderators of each room can filter content requiring approval to post and ban anyone, blocking their device from re-joining. Unlike the original message boards, it’s not “anything goes”; Facebook’s community standard guidelines will apply, banning abusive behaviour and the sharing of certain types of material like child abuse images.
Rooms can also have an age rating, although bypassing the age gate is as simple as taping the “Yes, I’m over 18” button. Age is not verified, however. Rooms does not require a Facebook account to use, only an email address to log in again if switching between devices.
The app, which is presently iPhone-only, is the latest from Facebook’s Creative Labs, responsible for Facebook’s Paper and Slingshot apps among others, and marks another Facebook app divorced from the core Facebook social network.
Josh Miller, former chief executive of the discussion site Branch and now Facebook product manager, acknowledge the debt to older text-based chat systems, saying Rooms was “inspired by both the ethos of these early web communities and the capabilities of modern smartphones.”
In a blog post, Miller said: “One of the magical things about the early days of the web was connecting to people who you would never encounter otherwise in your daily life … Forums, message boards and chatrooms were meeting places for people who didn’t necessarily share geographies or social connections, but had something in common.”
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/24/facebook-chat-room-rooms-iphone-app
