Hey guys! Sorry for the app store issues. Trying our best with Apple to figure out what's up. In the meantime, think my deep-dive Q&A with TechCrunch gives you some good background on Rooms (warning: product nerd alert). What's up? Any questions?
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/23...
@joshm Thanks for the update, let me know if you want to work with me on adding Rooms to UXArchive.com so people can have a better view on how the app works in the meantime :)
@zackshapiro Basically, we realized that the web would not have existed without linking. That's how people discovered things – you'd get linked to it, or know the link URL yourself. We needed to replicate that, but copy-and-pasting a URL is a cumbersome process on mobile (we tried with Potluck) and even if you do that you have to wait for a mobile web page to load. It sucks.
So we thought, if URLs were the easiest thing to share on a desktop computer, what's the easiest thing to share on a phone? Photos! You can share photos everywhere, in any app. It's just as flexible and portable as a link was on the web. And screenshotting seemed like the phone's equivalent of control c, control v. On top of that, the QR code technology meant we could automatically do the work for users without any work on their part... or even knowing what a QR code is. It just magically works, which felt cool.
@zackshapiro I hope so! That would mean a lot to me. We need to reinvent the URL for mobile, and I think photo-based linking makes a lot of sense – in our app, and others.
Without even trying it I think its going to fail.. I think these ideas of Facebooks have a few major problems. 1.) People, especially teens, have a growing dislike of the FB brand. They don't want to join in on another FB product when they are already moving away from Facebook itself. 2.) When a product like this launches with tons of press and hype, and is still buggy, it leads users to becoming frustrated and therefore not willing/hard to get them to try it again.
I think FB would be better off launching these small concepts under a brand new company name and therefore not getting press, OR investing in already growing popular start ups with teen demographics like SnapChat, ect.
What do you guys think? @rrhoover
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@maxpbeaumont This is what Josh Miller had to say about the app's early success: "So Rooms, again, I’m looking for, “Is anyone addicted to what we’ve built?” Not, “Does everyone in the world get it right away?” Because if everyone in the world got it right away, we probably didn’t build something that interesting."
@maxpbeaumont@rrhoover "I think FB would be better off launching these small concepts under a brand new company name and not trying to get a ton of press" - I think Facebook actually does a good job of this. If you look at the Rooms website, you wouldn't know it's Facebook. And they don't necessary try to get press - if FB releases anything, everyone just wants to write and talk about it. I'm personally impressed with their dedication to side projects/trying new things.
They're doing exactly that, @maxpbeaumont: launching off-brand products through relatively autonomous (from what I've gathered) teams. We all know Rooms and other spinoffs are part of Facebook but the normal person does not. I've spoken to several techie teens (@michaelsayman, @orbuch) that tell me that most their friends have no idea Instagram is part of Facebook. This is smart, because of the concerns you mentioned and it diversifies their brand. cc @lee94josh
@eric3000@maxpbeaumont I think it was Marc Andreessen who said that big things usually start out as little, almost toy-like things that seem inconsequential. This seems to be in line with Josh Miller's comment about building things that people don't initially get. It's an intriguing concept. Though I wonder how someone could get addicted to something without "getting it". But I'm all for experiments. Go FB.
@eric3000@maxpbeaumont early success, Eric. The full context of that quote is about how it takes time for people to understand something and for it to catch on
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So this is kind of like micro facebook reddit?
The interaction to join rooms is really interesting. One - you share a room by sending a picture of the QR code to friends. Two - Rooms, since it has access to your photos, automatically adds that room for you. Instantly. I like how this can foster secret and exclusive groups among people. Somewhere between Secret and Facebook.
EDIT: The "Nom" buttom on Noms from Above is just fantastic
@eric3000 To me this also sounds more like a Reddit move than a Secret move. Love the messaging around the release, but I find it really hard to support any technology that is still trying to leverage QR codes...
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@colbyh I think the difference is that it's not "Stop everything, take your phone out, download a QR app, open QR app and snap a picture of this QR code." It's "take a screenshot of a qr code OR have a friend send a picture of a QR code". It's one step vs. many, which makes it interesting.
I had a chance to download Rooms earlier.
@gem_ray and @hursh gave a talk to the HackNY fellows this summer at Facebook in NYC. They talked a lot about getting bought by Facebook and what that transition was like. So today, it is interesting to see how that acquisition has played out.
I'm not a fan of a lot of the design. It's good, just not my style. I think it would go over well with teenagers. Also, the on boarding and getting a verification code through email was very unexpected.
@joshm How do you see Rooms fitting into Facebook's mission to make the world more open and connected? Curious.
@kylry related to my answer to Ryan's question, a big part of who we are includes things that our friends aren't interested in. Facebook's mission is to make the world more open and connected, and I think connecting you to things you love and people that love those things too is a big part of that. There are over two billion people on the internet, if we can connect you to a few more than you happened to go to college or work with I think it would be a huge win.
@thinker@rrhoover@joshm I wanted to post it but I had already hit my quota for the day! One of those times where I wish I didn't empty my clip so early!
I just don't get the "US App Store Only" thing .. WHY???
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@bramk hi Bram, don't know if yours was a rhetoric question. anyway.. I call it "Geographical expansion" and it is useful for various reasons. One is critical mass: what if no one or just few of your friends are using the app in your country? If you are a "normal person" you will probably delete the app.
Congrats on the launch, @joshm! I've been curious what you've been up to since sunsetting Branch and joining Facebook. :)
Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to play with it because of the App Store issues and as someone who's very interested in group chat, I'm feeling the FOMO. Broadly, why did you guys build Rooms? Mobile group chat is saturated and clearly there's not room for improvements. ;)
@rrhoover this question never fails...
"What are you into – interest, hobbies, etc. – that your closest friends aren't into?" Everybody I talk to has a few answers to that question. @ev once told me that the most important feature of any publishing platform is its audience. Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, WhatsApp – all of the most popular mobile services are concerned with our friends, and that's constraining. There are two billion people on the internet and our hunch is there's a massive opportunity trying to connect some of those folks.
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