Thanks for the question @bentossell.
We set out to make a place for authentic conversations, focusing on video to capture non-verbal communication often missing online.
Selfie proved a challenging identity for a video conversation app forgoing photos, filters, or editing. People looking for photo selfies were confused. Daily users had a hard time evangelizing a community called "Selfie."
We learned through the Selfie project that people returned because of authentic interactions with people they otherwise wouldn't have met. We decided to focus on that.
We realized there isn't a great place today for people to talk and understand each another better. If we already had that place, social and political discourse would be a lot less gross.
People try to talk about things on social media but text-based conversation creates miscommunication and makes bullying easy. A forum for people to actually understand one another would have to be face-to-face.
Humans evolved communicating face-to-face and it’s still the most-complete way to do so. We communicate better, like other people more, and treat each other better. Historically these interactions have been very hard to scale beyond a handful of people nearby but social apps can make it easy.
The last time I hunted Speakup, I was confused about whether it was just a renaming of the Selfie app (it was, and now Selfie has been pulled from the App Store). Speak is now back as its own thing — kind of like a video-based version of Anchor for having video conversations about stuff that matters to people.
Hi @anthony_stylianou. Thanks for asking.
We don't review content before posting but any video can be flagged and will be reviewed. Overall though we've been very encouraged by the way people behave and treat one another with respect.
There are many ways to serve businesses and other partners as we grow. As an example, we recently introduced channels. A partner can create and maintain a channel within Speakup's Explore area, curating the converations within and allowing their base, whether activists or customers, to represent them.
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