Discovering rooms on FriendFeed

Back in May, we blogged that the idea for Rooms “started when we wanted a better way to share feature ideas and product plans with each other here at FriendFeed, but not the rest of the world—a mini FriendFeed of our own.” Since that launch, our office has become completely dependent on our internal room.

We’ve heard lots of stories of groups of people using private rooms in really interesting ways, including screenwriters sharing script ideas and PR agencies collecting press clippings for their clients. It’s been great to see others using FriendFeed for increasing their communication and productivity as well.

But public rooms have also turned out to be really popular. And we’ve noticed that the FriendFeed community has developed lots of fun and creative ways to make the most of them—from sports enthusiasts discussing basketball, to friends posting photos, to early adopters requesting and sharing invites for private beta web services. Just yesterday, Pepsi launched a room to discuss its new visual identity with potential brand ambassadors.

As rooms usage increased, more and more people have asked for a way to find and browse public rooms. So we're happy to now offer room search:

Searching works for words in the room name or description. We even offer some personalized room recommendations based on rooms that are popular among your friends, as well as the entire FriendFeed community.

So go ahead, find an interesting room to join. With just a week left to go, maybe the US Politics room? Or, if even another week seems unbearable to you, there's always the No Politics Allowed room. (I, for one, have recently become addicted to the Movie Reviews room, which I keep open in a mini window throughout the day.) And as always, please keep your feedback coming!