Just recently, Facebook released a new app for their iPhone users called Rooms for Facebook. Created by their Creative Labs arm, the app is described by the social networking site as a meeting place that was inspired by early web communities and chat rooms. Through Rooms iOS app, users can create places for things they are interested in. And in turn, they can invite other people who share the same interests.
A room is a feed of photos, videos, and text – not too different from the one you have on Instagram or Facebook – with a topic determined by whoever created the room. Early users have already created rooms for everything from beat boxing videos to parkour to photos of home-cooked meals. There’s even a room called “Kicks From Above” that showcases photographs of cool shoes in cool places.
Apart from this, the new Facebook app enables its users to stay anonymous or show their real names at all. Each chatroom is fully customizable and users can decide which text, colors, emoji, member permission, and cover photo they would like to use.
A few days after the app was announced, a company is now claiming that Facebook copied its original software which they called as Room. Much like the new Facebook app, the Room application enables its users to create their own chatroom and invite their friends while staying anonymous. The app was released on the App Store as early as September.
Regarding the situation, Room Co-Founder and CTO, Damien Rottemberg, released this statement to the media:
“We don’t know what happened, if something was leaked from VCs we were talking to that are very connected with Facebook, if it’s from high Facebook executives that we have on our Facebook friend’s list, friends of friends working at Facebook, or someone at Facebook that saw our app and thought it was cool enough to copy,” stated Damien Rottemberg, Co-Founder and CTO of Room. “We’re sure this is not a coincidence. We don’t understand how Facebook, with all their lawyers, could have released an app with the same name and features. We won’t let this happen and we want to defend all entrepreneurs with great ideas and great visions.”
Looking at Facebook’s previously released apps, it isn’t the first time that the social networking giant was accused of copying intellectual property. As a matter of fact, their apps have been largely similar to that of Paper by FiftyThree and Bolt.
Because of the issue, the founders of Room Inc. are currently considering taking legal action against the social networking site. Facebook, what do you have to say about this?
Source: 9to5 Mac
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