Thunderclap is built on the premise that while social media is an easy way to say something, it’s difficult to be truly heard.

Thunderclap's mission is to be the world's megaphone, providing anyone with a message the platform on which to be heard. Powered by the crowd, Thunderclap is revolutionizing how people raise awareness, much like Kickstarter did for fundraising.

The “Human Megaphone” at Occupy Wall Street first inspired us, where thousands of people amplified the voice of a single speaker. The SOPA/PIPA legislation in the United States also inspired us– during which everyone was copy-and-pasting the same message onto their Facebook and Twitter feeds in an attempt to stop the legislation from passing. Thunderclap was created from the ground up for anyone who has a message that they want to spread. Thousands of individuals, brands and organizations have run Thunderclap campaigns using our self-serve tools.

The technology is advanced and has been in market for a year. It uses Twitter’s OAuth and Facebook Connect to manage the automatic blast of messages, and has a strong back end to handle the scale.

Thunderclap is the world's first crowdspeaking platform. No other technology exists that allows large groups to rally behind a message and create a mass impact. What was once only possible when large crowds gather in public, Thunderclap brings to everyone on social media.

Simultaneous message dispatching from multiple campaigns running in parallel creates some unique challenges. It required us to create a horizontally scalable system that guarantees delivery while respecting rate limiting and the always-changing API requirements of our partners. We also power a highly trafficked website that sits in front of our scheduling and messaging architecture.

We control all the upstream content, scheduling, and messaging technology while deeply integrating with multiple social networks for our content syndication.

We are rolling out tools for Thunderclap creators to:

* extend the reach of their campaigns

* build even larger audiences

* white label the technology on their domain.

We are also building an in-app messaging system and adding additional partner channels such as Tumblr and Pinterest.

We invested our own seed capital and are raising a “Series A” round of financing.

We expect Thunderclap to scale as a stand-alone platform and are actively executing that vision.

Thunderclap is already disrupting how people rally around ideas and will force other platforms to adapt. Petition sites will need to move beyond collecting signatures to channeling that intent into awareness and direct action. Native advertising will have to contend with coordinating social media activity around a moment in time.

We've hosted dozens of high profile campaigns on Thunderclap including:

* The United Nations and Beyonce used Thunderclap to spread awareness of World Humanitarian Day, trending the message in 17 countries on Twitter.

* The Sierra Club and Green Peace used Thunderclap in conjunction with the largest climate rally in U.S. history.

* The White House created a Thunderclap supporting gun regulation in the US, hosting the technology on the WH.gov domain, and gathering over 18,000 people to support it.

Development Timeline

March 2012 - design and backend development begins

May 2012 - open to the public

June 2012 - Facebook integration

August 2012 - branded campaigns and video integration

October 2012 - analytics dashboard

December 2012 - message throttling

March 2013 - embed Thunderclap on any domain