Rounds (formally known as 6rounds) is a video-enabled real-time social network with collaborative browsing, chat, multi-player gaming and built-in social recommendation features that can be expanded through an open

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

. Rounds was founded by Israeli

entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

Dany Fishel, Ilan Leibovich and Dimitry Shestek in February 2008. Fishel is Rounds' CEO and Ilan Leibovich is the company COO. The company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Rounds is the first product released using the GixOO software platform, which was created in April 2008.

History

Rounds launched in July 2009. Rounds released an

for game, entertainment and collaboration-based applications in April 2010. The company changed its name from 6rounds to Rounds in August 2010. Rounds also released its application that allows users to video chat, exchange pictures, surf the internet and play games via Facebook in August. Rounds released Android and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

applications in December 2012. The company discontinued the "Meet New People" feature of its platform in February 2013. Rounds retired the feature out of concerns about security and privacy of its users, most of whom are under the age of 25. In December 2013, company also announced its integration with Vidyo's technology that allows video chat capabilities to Google Hangouts. In January 2017, Rounds has been acquired by the Canadian messaging service, Kik Messenger, for a reported $60-$80 million. Kik will acquire all 35 employees of Rounds and turn its Tel Aviv office into a Kik product and engineering center, which will be its first international base.

Features and uses

Rounds users create their own (embeddable) personal slide show to inform other users about themselves. Users connect through messaging and video chats (referred to as rounds). They initiate rounds either by inviting a specific person or by joining a specified room based on activity, game or topic. Once users join a specified round they are systematically matched with another user interested in the same type of round. As of 2013, Rounds requires a pre-existing Facebook friendship before users can begin video chatting one another. While chatting, users can share in various activities, including watching videos on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, co-browsing on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, and playing games such as

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

backgammon Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back at least 1,600 years. The earliest record of backgammo ...

checkers Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), is a group of Abstract strategy game, strategy board games for two players which involve forward movements of uniform game ...

, and truth or dare.

External features

The Rounds platform offers an open API which allows third party integrations, from small scaled modifications to white-label solutions. Rounds was one of the first Google Wave extensions to be featured and the only video chat to be launched at the Google Wave beta launch.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Chat websites VoIP software Internet properties established in 2009 Israeli social networking websites