It used to be that doing a Google search was the only thing you needed to do to find information and that the flow of information was slow enough that anyone could follow. Those days are LONG over. Now that we have http://search.twitter.com , http://news.google.com , and http://blogsearch.google.com, among others, we need a new answer. Rooms are that answer. Here's why. - Robert Scoble

Let's say you have a bunch of searches you want to mash up along with a few RSS feeds from blogs. Maybe one from a product site or a conference site. Etc. How do you do that? Well, you could build some weird contraption in Yahoo Pipes, but I find that a room is the best place because of friendfeed's community platform. For instance, next week I'm going to the World Economic Forum in Davos. I created this room to follow that: - Robert Scoble

http://friendfeed.com/rooms... <<--World Economic Forum room. - Robert Scoble

Do you see what's going on there? I've brought feeds from Google News. Twitter (for several different search terms). Google Blog Search. And from several official Davos blogs too. All mixed together into that room. - Robert Scoble

so the rooms are similar to yahoo pipes but less tech savy? I could set up a room for a new blog and then also add in bookmarks of web posts that were related then right? - Netvalar

Rooms can be private. Venture Beat, for instance, does all of its workflow in a room that you can't see unless you are on staff with them. - Robert Scoble

Rooms are full-fledged members of friend feed. You can like and comment items and share them with your friends. You can link to items, just like you can link to any friendfeed items here. If you own those items you can moderate them (I can delete any items in the Davos room, for instance). - Robert Scoble

Netvalar: yeah. Yahoo Pipes is pretty daunting for normal people. Rooms just require you to subscribe to the feeds from searches and from blogs. Just like you add items to your account here. Yup, you can mix together RSS feeds from blogs and those from your favorite bookmarking site like Del.icio.us. - Robert Scoble

My favorite room is the Apps Room: http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Robert Scoble

Great I thought so but haven't taken the time yet to look into it thanx for taking the time to inform me - Netvalar

Rooms encourage communities to form and work together out of the view of the "noisy assholes" like me on the main "Home" feed on friendfeed. - Robert Scoble

It's interesting that more Twitter users don't discover these. They are an AWESOME way to track Twitter Search http://search.twitter.com - Robert Scoble

This is totally cool. I feel some FF addiction growing up deep inside. :-) - Cristian Vidmar

hmm I was thinking of a different use but the work together thing I wonder if some of the musicians I work with would be interested. Well it at lest would be worth placing into a blog post for those readers who are trying to improve their street teams - Netvalar

Oh, and thanks for sharing, of course! - Cristian Vidmar

Scoble, pls direct him to this post of mine too http://thenextweb.com/2009... - Zee.

Checking out post Zee - Netvalar

Hey Zee think you can place the links to FF part 1 and 2 too - Netvalar

Zee: please do link in your articles, thanks! - Robert Scoble

Scoble what would be the best URL for me to reference in a blog post for the help you have shared with me today on this subject? - Netvalar

Netvalar: you can link to all of these friendfeed items (you can get a permalink to them by using the "More" menu and clicking "Link to this entry." If you want to link to me, probably http://www.friendfeed.com/scoblei... is best since that's where all my original stuff is aggregated together. - Robert Scoble

so now I just need those other links from ZEE a bit more reading on my part and a musicians guide to FF with links to http://friendfeed.com/scoblei... and those posts should be done within the hour or shortly thereafter - Netvalar

A bit of work on my part but I got those other 2 links now part 1 http://thenextweb.com/2008... Part 2 http://thenextweb.com/2008... there in case anyone stops by the URLs are availble - Netvalar

Will definitely add the link as soon as I get to the office...am on iphone right now. But I'm floating on air right now,did I read that right Robert? Your favorite room is the Apps Room?? Yahoooooo! - Zee.

Netvalar, I'm on my iPhone now but if u search for "Guide to Friendfeed" on google, all 3 posts i've done so far should be there - Zee.

Zee: yes, the Apps room rocks. Thanks for creating it! - Robert Scoble

Wow, I've been here for a while and thought I knew most of the coolest tricks but now I really GET what rooms are about and how to utilise them best, thanks Robert :) - Nicola Quinn

Might have to put that in the rooms description... :) "Scobles Favorite Room..." - Zee.

put your autographed photo down, zee... - Terry O'Fee

hey, thanks for pointing that out robert - I've never taken the time to explore FF properly, but rooms does look really useful - Sam from twhirl

might just change the apps photo to Scobles face...(I kid I kid..) - Zee.

wipe the drool off too while you're there .. hahah - Terry O'Fee

Is there a simple way to filter my Google Reader stream to different FriendFeed rooms? - Andreas

So, for the slow ones among us, the main difference/advantage of FF rooms to just subscribing in any RSS Reader, would be the collaboration possibility, plus the fact that rooms can be public, right? - Peter Efland

Andreas, there is a feed for every room - Fredrik Hansson

Fredrik: So then how do you direct an item in your Google Reader's shared list to a specific FF room? You can import the whole shared list but that's not what I'm after. I want to add yet another filter (need to use Yahoo Pipes?!) on top of Google Reader to extract articles, blog posts, etc to certain FF rooms. - Andreas

Once caveat: People don't see your "Likes" on items in a room unless they're subscribed to that room or visit it. If it's something you want to spread around, put it in your main feed. - Bruce Lewis from fftogo

Good stuff, Robert. I've been thinking about innovative uses for FF Rooms a lot this past week (jump-started by your frequent mentions), and I really like the Venture Beat private room example you give, good to know that businesses are waking up to the potential. In a way, FF is providing a lot of the functionality that Twitter is missing, as an overlay. Problem with Twitter is that it's difficult to get some permanence to your feed(s) including searches, FF solves that: - Alex Schleber

Here is an example of a Twitter "Track" Room on keyword "Psychology", note that you likely want to do a few tricks with the query to keep it useful, e.g. "psychology filter:links -RT" (to avoid duplicates and much chatter) - http://friendfeed.com/rooms... - Alex Schleber

7 Ways To Utilize FriendFeed Rooms http://www.bwana.org/2008... (May '08) - Bwana ☠

rooms are cool but I love lists, makes the biggest difference for me - nothing else like it - mike "glemak" dunn

If you are new to FF and want to meet more people, subscribe to some rooms and participate. To be honest, I met over half the people here through rooms at first. I would love to find out the most effect and exact twitter search terms (whether it is using "" , or, and) in getting the maximum results for the search. - Amani

Andreas: I tag the item in Reader with a specific tag and then subscribe to my tag's RSS feed in my Room. - Nick in Manila

I have to say that I didn't understand the appeal of Rooms until I tried this technique and created http://friendfeed.com/rooms... to track Kindle info and satisfy my tech-nerd-reader itch. Thanks Robert! - Daniel Norton