DURHAM – A Durham-grown social media and communication app called SpokeHub is hitting the Apple and Google Play stores this week. A beta version has been open since last June, but this week’s update is a complete overhaul of the app and marks its official launch.

The founders also closed their $500,000 seed round funding this week and opened their second seed round of $1.5 million.

Factbox: SpokeHub

  • What it does: Provides a forum for communicating directly with friends, celebrities, businesses and others
  • Features: user-friendly, ability to join or create communication ‘hubs’ around topics or interests, ability to message individuals directly, secure, customizable
  • Where to get it: Apple AppStore or Google Play

Even in its beta form SpokeHub obtained a celebrity as an official brand ambassador (George Lopez), was used to promote the screening of the film Marshall, and gained over 1,400 active users and reached between 6,000 and 7,000 people. And it’s all based on the revival of a retro concept—chat rooms. But don’t think AOL-style chat rooms, these have “a lot more bells and whistles” says co-founder and Head of Business Development Richard Berryman III.

Why SpokeHub

The co-founding team behind the app, Berryman, Robert Hartsfield, John York, John McAdory, and Terry Johnson built SpokeHub because they believe meaningful, two-way engagement is next-to impossible to achieve through today’s social media and communication tools. Celebrities, journalists, politicians, and everyday citizens alike may use apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat to communicate, but questions are often unanswered, and posts often turn into more of a monologue or diatribe than a conversation. Berryman and Hartsfield argue the current platforms inability to foster authentic and two-way conversations is because they weren’t built for it.

Richard Berryman

Meanwhile, the founders built SpokeHub as a “true chat technology” from the start, and that’s what differentiates it from other social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. At its core, it’s built for two-way communication where as other social media apps have limited two-way engagement opportunities. The SpokeHub team also differentiates its app from other communication applications like Slack in that they maintain Slack is a business tool while SpokeHub can be used for social or business purposes. SpokeHub’s current offering is built for both social use and businesses but in Q1 of 2018 they’ll expand their business offerings with a standalone enterprise version. The enterprise version will provide their business clients with tools like a dashboard that compiles and displays key data like customer satisfaction they can use for decision making.

Positive feedback spurs redevelopment

Hartsfield explained the feedback from users on version one was overwhelmingly positive. They introduced the beta to students from UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State, and East Carolina University at their back-to-school events in August and received an overwhelmingly positive response. Hartsfield said, “that’s when we knew we had something because you can’t manufacture that level of fun with millennials.”

And in November, the Marshall film’s PR agency invited the SpokeHub team to attend the premiere of the film in Baltimore, Maryland and advertised their app as a tool for premiere goers to use to chat about their thoughts of the film with others who had seen it or those were interested in seeing it.

Locally, the Durham Chamber of Commerce was an early adopter of the app and is using the app to better connect to its business community. They’ve used SpokeHub to notify members of events and interact with their members during those events.

Ratings and reviews for version two are pending, but the reviews found on Google Play and iTunes for version were few but positive. One user exclaimed, “they brought chat rooms back!!!” and described it as “the perfect app for events, tv shows, movies, and sports.” Another user, identified themselves as a college student and indicated they would love the opportunity to chat with their professors through the app should their professors adopt it.

Design

Like a newsfeed, the app’s home screen is tailored to a user’s preferences and interests that they indicate when first signing in to the app. Users can join or create as many hubs as they like around topics or themes they’d like to discuss with others. Right now, hub topics range from one for fans of the TV show Scandal to a Duke sports fans hub. And users always have the option to create private hubs or one-on-one conversations too.

Once inside an individual hub, the interface looks and feels much like a group text message. Only in this group text the user can simultaneously interact with any number of strangers, celebrities, friends, or businesses.

And interact people do. In George Lopez’s hub of 1,416 members, the actor frequently poses questions to or responds to questions from the 1,416 group members. Just a few weeks ago, he asked his hub members if they’ve seen the Springsteen Broadway show and if so what they thought about it.

The updated version is faster, more specialized to a user’s preferences, more user-friendly, and has corrected glitches found in the first version. For example, in the first version navigating from hub to direct messages or notifications with in hubs was difficult, but in version two navigation is more effective and seamless.

Berryman says the refreshed design is also more visually appealing, more secure, and with added features will be “more fun” for users.