How Chris Crabtree Came Up With SpeakU

SpeakU founder Chris Crabtree describes SpeakU as doing for blogs and forums what Twitter does for status updates. After using Twitter for a while, Crabtree noticed that, while people continued to make Twitter updates, they posted links to their more important information at other locations on the web. He felt that the brevity of the messages posted on Twitter detracted from the effectiveness of the site as a venue for relevant content.

A more useful approach to information-sharing

Crabtree’s idea was to create a place where users could post their information in real time, on a platform visible to other users. These users could read the content as it appeared, instead of following links to other websites. Users can publish full blog or forum-style posts that show up immediately on the site. Rather than the 140-character limit that Twitter imposes, SpeakU has a minimum of 140 characters per post. This helps to ensure the value of the content for other users of the site.

Gleaning data from blogs and posts

Through Crabtree’s previous employment with a company that harvested web information, he learned that people were gathering pertinent information from forum posts and blogs. Companies still use this tactic to discover how people are reacting to their products. Bringing this valuable content to a real-time network, so that it is more accessible and easier to find, is part of what prompted the concept of this company.

Chris Crabtree had a desire to take the blog and forum posting of users into a real-time platform. This platform allows users to share information and comments with others that share similar interests, using a format that is instantly accessible to those in the network.