Rooms — shared watching, no strings attached
Paste a link. Watch together. That is the whole point. No subscription prompts, no injected ads, no algorithm deciding what you watch next.
Notice: Planned Product Information
This documentation describes functionality and policies planned for the hosted Kookey social platform, targeting release in Q1 2027. The current public website is a static presentation and waitlist.
1.What a room actually is
A room is a synchronized playback session. You paste a YouTube link, a SoundCloud track, or another supported source, share the room link with friends, and everyone watches or listens at the same time. When someone pauses, it pauses for everyone. When someone skips ahead, the others follow. There is a chat panel on the side so you can talk without switching apps.
That is the whole feature. There is no watch-party setup wizard, no fourteen-step account upgrade, no upsell to a premium tier that lets you skip the bit where you explain what the room is. You paste a link and the room exists.
2.Why other platforms make this unnecessarily hard
Most big platforms treat synchronized watching as a premium or social engagement hook. You need a subscription, you need the other person to have the same subscription, and then the app still decides to autoplay something you did not ask for the moment your video ends. Some services inject sponsor segments into your party stream. Others require everyone to install an extension, create an account, agree to a terms update, and then lose sync every fifteen minutes anyway.
Kookey does not host the video. It coordinates playback with the source player so both the video and the room stay lightweight. The content stays where it is; Kookey just makes sure everyone is watching it at the same time.
3.Chat without turning it into a production
The chat panel exists so you can talk during the room without opening a separate app. It is a side panel, not a broadcast system. You are not building an audience. You are not being encouraged to grow your viewer count. You are watching something with friends and saying things about it in real time, which is a completely normal human activity that should not require a content strategy.
4.Public rooms and private rooms
A room can be public — visible in the feed, joinable by anyone on the platform — or private, meaning only people with a specific invite link can get in. Private rooms use single-use invite tokens sent through messages. There is no "unlock your room privacy" paywall. The person starting the room decides whether it is open or closed.
Public rooms appear in the feed so other people can discover them and join. Private rooms do not. The distinction is that simple.
5.What is available today
The hosted social service is in development with a target release in Q1 2027. The current website is a static presentation and waitlist. Rooms are not available yet. Supported media sources, participant limits, playback controls, and chat details will be described when the service is closer to launch.