Findroomshare.com home page

Findroomshare Case Study

HISTORY

Findroomshare.com is a 2 years running project, to develop a free social and international networking community for Flatsharing.

Such idea came from Clownfish Design´Directors experiences when living as students and young professionals in different foreign countries.

Realizing that all competitors websites were paying and only provided accomodation renting services on their home market, it was more than obvious that we had to develop a totally free service for a multi-cultural community.

If Europe broke frontiers, the website should be able to do so. Imagine a unique place to connect with people before moving to the country you will go to live in or simply before travelling there. Connecting flatsharing people was our singularity, our added value.

Conscientious of our fisrt step was to make sure to avoid any possible cross-cultural mistake, the first online version was already in three languages when launch on March 2009.

Clownfish Design has been improving and integrating new features to Findroomshare´website and slowly started to promote the community toward its main target market, european students and young professionals aged from 18 to 30 years old.

The 2.0 website was created on our in-house CMS Anemone, a modular Content Management System, allowing us to edit, update any part of the site so as to gather statistical information about community users behaviour.

CREED

The user-friendly, clear and attractive design of the homepage integrates an internal search engine, showcases the lasts members, adverts, virtual flatshares, so as challenges and also provides some community participating resources.

When working on how would the website be, Clownfish Design insisted in differenciating the approach of accomodation services. We wanted Findroomshare to be more about flat sharing than renting a room, to be more entertaining than formal.

Indeed, instead of solely offering connecting possibilities to the members, our goal was for them to have fun, to enjoy surfing the website and come back even if they were not looking for a room or a flatmate but simply as being part of an original and strongly united group of persons living the same experiences.

That is the reason why, Findroomshare not only allows its members to look for a room, a flatmate or somebody to buddy-up with, but also aims to help the flatmate community to build a useful informational resource and share it with other members wherever they can be.

FEATURES

The website integrates an International City Guide to list and present all the places members like or recommend, a Flatsharing Tips section to share advices and experiences, plus a Blog acting as a community diary.

The Community is divided in two networks: Flatmates and Virtual Flatshares. While flatmates connect trough their individual profile but can become a member of other virtual flatshares, Flatshares interact trough their Virtual Flatshare profile and network allowing them to even challenge each others.

Individual Profile   Flatmate Profile Flatmate Test Flatmate Feedback

My Folder Free Advert Contacts Messages Inbox Favorite Adverts

My Flat Community My virtual flatshare Edit my virtual Flat My flat network

My Challenges New challenge Past challenges

Virtual Flatshare Profile Flatshare profile Fridge Door Members Challenges New challenge Past challenges

EVOLUTION AWARENESS

After only a couple of months online, we were delighted to know that Findroomshare.com was recognized by european institutions as a valuable actor of the Innovation & Creativity European Year 2009.

Believing it was a good start and seeking for our target awareness developing Findroomshare Brand Identity, Clownfish Design started to promote the website and its community.

Using E-marketing strategies, the first serie of five Flatsharing Experiences were created on a Video Viral format and placed on several worldwide social networks such as Facebook, Youtube, Vimeo...etc. The feedback obtained from such action for the last three months now, is that our users number and community participation were doubled.

Considering our target, we also started investigating on how promoting Findroomshare on a printed format. After having distributed some leaflets during the website launch in March we thought about the right way to reach an higher number of new users from different countries

Evaluating our possibilities, we decided to go with one of the most famous students guide: What´s On.

An interactive banner giving us statistical feedback on visitors behaviour where displayed on the What´s On website and we also place a printed advert within the first ever What´s On European Students Guide.

The Guide has been distributed since November for free, to students from 11 different countries all accross Europe trough strategic places such as students fairs, campus and universities.

Flash banner published on Whatson.uk.com, Flyers and printed advert in What's On European Student Guide

CONCLUSION

As a project based on a 2 years minimum development process, the Findroomshare Developer Team is currently working hard on integrating new 2.0 features to make the website more dynamic and participating.

Some updates are already scheduled for 2010 and Clownfish Design maintain the wishes of surprising soon their target audience with some totally innovating features becoming a leading website for the free service that Findroomshare provides.

To be kept updated on Findroomshare.com development, please follow the link here and suscribe to our newsletter.

Happy Flatsharing!