I came up with the idea for Yar Matey last fall when applying for housing at UIUC. Many incoming Freshmen peruse Facebook groups looking for roommates in order to avoid being randomly assigned one by the university. I found paging through Facebook discussion boards to be horribly inefficient and envisioned an app that combined Facebook’s omnipresence with focused functionality to aid in searching for roommates.

Yar Matey is a pirate-themed site where college students can find potential roommates. Built with Facebook Connect, the user experience is modeled around how students typically look for roommates on Facebook — select your school, fill out an easy survey, then look for roommates.

I built the site in about a week.