A Spoke customer, working alone or in concert with other site managers, can quickly build an attractive, feature-rich site using only a web browser. The layout and color scheme of the entire site can be selected from a choice of templates and completely customized. Features that manage dynamic content, such as threaded discussions, articles with member commentary, ratings, and event calendars are provided by objects that can be placed anywhere on the site. These content modules inherit their look and feel from the site itself, and are configured and managed via the web. Site members can easily contribute formatted content, complete with inline images and attachments.
Managers can turn such features on or off in any part of the site.
The Spoke Platform also includes email and usage tracking and is available either as a professionally hosted service or a software bundle. Unfortunately, the PHP language didn't provide enough abstraction to cleanly build a complex software product, a problem that became especially apparent when customers began extending their websites. Another problem was the difficulty of developing data caching systems with PHP and Apache, due to the multiple-process server architecture. The chief architect looked into building an entirely new platform from scratch. While he was researching the feature set required, he came across Zope, and recognized immediately the similarities between what he had planned and what Zope offered.