Two UON students have invented a social networking site that will unite users with similar interests and allow them to have customized content based on their interest.
Sidney Rema and Phelix Juma are the founders of this site that has now over 17,000 users among them Equity Bank CEO James Mwangi. Sidney and Juma are fourth year medical and electrical engineering students respectively.
The site known as Vospine, allows users to choose content which they find appropriate and relevant and hence improving the experience one gets on social media.
Vospine, which operates almost similarly to Facebook, has structural differences in terms of targeted audience and content which makes it stand out from the rest of the networking sites.
One is required to create an account from which you become a spinner and can choose channels in which you will be receiving notifications and newsfeeds. People who have chosen similar channels can interact and participate in a topic.
Inspired by their backgrounds, channels are available in two main categories; General and Scholar channels where scholar channel allows students to have conversations and share educational materials.
Speaking to a local newspaper, Sidney explained the ordeals he had while using some social networking sites which prompted him to think of something that could only bring him what he wanted to make his social networking beneficial.
The site has currently over 80 channels under various categories such as sports, entertainment and politics among others.
To ensure content regulation, one can ‘flag’ unwanted content and once a post has been ‘flagged’ by at least five people, it automatically pulls off and can no longer be viewed.
Vospine is hosted by five servers with one in the University of Nairobi CFOD, a technology start up and innovation laboratory.
Being students, the founders of Vospine however, experience challenges in meeting the financial costs of maintaining it as it requires strong servers which can protect it from cyber threats.
The two are however hopeful that with time the site will be in a position of maintaining itself by incorporating advertisers who would wish to have their content promoted.
Vospine also has an android version that can be used on phone or tablet and is available for download from google apps store.
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