SiliconANGLE & CrowdChat Founder John Furrier

Last week social networking giant Facebook Inc. launched Rooms, a new chat app available for iOS that lets users create their own rooms based on topics. Each room is highly customizable, and signing up for the service won’t require you to give up your identity or force you to link it to your Facebook account.

Check out how to set up your Rooms account here.

Rooms cater to those looking for a contained place to share with like-minded people without the hassles of giving up personal information. It’s the user’s prerogative if he or she wants to give out personal details, and users can pick a different name for each room created.

Facebook Rooms is currently limited to iOS mobile users, with plans for Android and web versions in the pipeline. So here are some alternatives to Facebook Rooms that are worth a look.

3 alternatives to Facebook Rooms

CrowdChat

SiliconANGLE CEO and Founder John Furrier has launched CrowdChat to revolutionize how people communicate. CrowdChat gives hashtags place and relevance in this very social world, as users can sign in using their Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter account. From there, interaction can take place via any of the above outlets through the use of specific hashtags to join conversations.

CrowdChat allows people to host “containerized” chats that track conversation threads, almost like a virtual event that’s archived and embeddable. The forum also provides free analytics and transcripts for each session, and advanced analytics for enterprise use.

CrowdChat is a free service and has been used by IBM, EMC, Hewlett-Packard Co. and NetApp Inc., to name a few.

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SwiftChat

This free mobile chat platform is available for iOS and Android devices, and allows users to connect to anyone in the world by browsing and engaging in trending topics ranked by popularity. SwiftChat requires no password or registration to use the service, and to unlock more features, you need to upvote other users. Users have the option to join chat rooms of their liking or create their own to attract people with the same interests.

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Chrends

Chrends is the chatroom for trending topics that offers anonymity to iPhone users who are looking to talk with people of the same interests. It doesn’t require users to give their email address, phone number, or any other identifiers. Just pick a nickname and start looking for chat rooms.

Chat rooms are called Chrends and they’re all named with a hashtag so it’s easier to find people with similar interests. Join a room or create one of your own to become a Chrendsetter or a room moderator.