Facebook’s new chat app hopes to resurrect the glory days of Microsoft Chat, bringing message boards to the iPhone
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.”
‘Be whoever we want to be’
Rooms attempts to replicate that scenario, where users can chat about anything using a distinct username for each room. The purpose isn’t to be anonymous, but users are not limited to their real name – they can call themselves whatever they would like.
“One of the things our team loves most about the internet is its potential to let us be whoever we want to be,” said Miller, whose stance over real names in Rooms seems very different from that of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook. “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.
“That’s why in Rooms you can be “Wonder Woman” – or whatever name makes you feel most comfortable and proud,” Miller said.
Each Room can contain text, images and videos, with the topic determined by the room creator. The service brings 1990s chat rooms into the 21st century with the ability to add cover photos, change the colour scheme and look of buttons in the room, create pinned messages and set whether content shared in the room can be linked to from the outside world.
Start up and make things
The app was developed by the London branch of Facebook’s Creative Labs, which was set up to enable a section of Facebook to operate like a technology startup, taking risks and trying things that the social network could not.
Its primary focus has been smaller, single-purpose apps, fitting in with Facebook’s push to unbundle its apps and services from the main “big blue” Facebook app, and increasing the pace of development and iteration within these separate apps.
The free app is iPhone-only – currently ranked as two-stars out of five on the App Store – although an Android Rooms app is planned for early 2015.
