HGTV.com debuts ‘Rate My Room’

The ever-popular HGTV.com has launched a new feature that allows users to upload photos and descriptions of their favorite rooms. Then others can rate the rooms and leave their own comments. In the end, HGTV.com builds up a library of design ideas… for free. Great idea. “If you don’t have the opportunity to work with a decorator, and not all of us do, you have a great resource right at your fingertips,” said Charity Curley, vice president of HGTV.com. Press release after the screen grab…

PRESS RELEASE — Do you have a great space but don’t know what to do with it? Or maybe you have a room that’s a real show stopper you’d like to share? HGTV.com introduces an exciting new social media feature, “Rate My Room,” in which visitors can share photos of their favorite or least favorite room, browse other’s spaces for inspiration as well as try their own hand at lending design advice. “Rate My Room” is available only at HGTV.com, the No. 1 online content destination in the Nielsen//NetRatings’ Home & Garden Category. (http://ratemyroom.hgtv.com )

HGTV.com’s “Rate My Room” is an easy-to-use hub for those who have a flair for decorating and would like to show-off their spaces as well as those who have the desire for design but need some help pulling it together. An easy upload process allows users to submit photos along with thoughts on the existing decor or requests for “design intervention.” Users can also rate each room as they browse and post comments allowing for the World Wide Web of design enthusiasts to talk to each other like never before.

“The exciting thing about ‘Rate My Room’ is it uses the latest technology to enable the oldest type of conversation — talking to friends and sharing ideas,” explains Charity Curley, vice president of HGTV.com. “If you don’t have the opportunity to work with a decorator, and not all of us do, you have a great resource right at your fingertips. With ‘Rate My Room,’ HGTV.com is bringing together many minds keen on design to help each other out and share. It’s a true virtual decorating community!”

“Rate My Room” is a user-generated companion to HGTV.com’s popular “Designers’ Portfolio,” a sumptuous gallery of more than 1,000 images submitted by more than 100 professional designers who have been featured on HGTV. This collection offers inspiration to transform any room around the house through hundreds of samples that are organized by dozens of categories from bedrooms to bathrooms and searchable by style, from country to eclectic and everything in-between. Favorite rooms can be saved in a personalized My Portfolio folder, as well as printed or emailed to friends. (http://hgtv.com/designersportfolio )

The dynamic Web sites created and supported by Scripps Networks Interactive attracted an average of more than 13.5 million unique visitors per month in 2006. The Scripps Networks Interactive properties — Web sites HGTV.com, FoodNetwork.com, DIYnetwork.com, FineLiving.com, GACTV.com along with broadband channels HGTV Pro , HGTV KitchenDesign, HGTV BathDesign , DIY Automotive, DIY Crafts, DIY Gardening , DIY Home Improvement and DIY Woodworking — are not only extensions of Scripps Networks leading lifestyle brands, providing users programming information and additional instructional content, but also exciting destinations for original content, engaging video and powerful interactive tools.