The first viable social media platform just for equestrians, Huufe combines a marketplace and ride tracking with your favorite social media functionality to create a unique experience. Horse Nation speaks with CEO Charlie Trietline for an exclusive first look.
For those of us who post more on social media about our horses than anything else in our life, for those of us who track every ride with another between-the-ears photo, for those of us whose various feeds look like a horse show lineup, for those of us who use social media as a way to buy, sell and network with other horse people all over the globe: Huufe is coming to combine all of these functions into one platform, developed by equestrians for equestrians.
Huufe CEO Charlie Trietline knows this equestrian world well: his father was a National Hunt trainer with 80 to 100 horses under his care. “As soon as I was able, I was riding,” Trietline details to Horse Nation. “I rode as an amateur jockey for awhile, then joined the army.” It wasn’t just any army regiment: Trietline was a member of the famous Household Cavalry, serving both as reconnaissance all over the world and “the ceremonial stuff,” as Trietline calls it. He followed his service with a decade working for Hewlett-Packard in the technology sector.
This combination of experiences gave Trietline plenty of ideas, but there was one idea in particular that he mulled over for weeks, then months: a social media platform that was part marketplace, part ride tracker, part community and all for equestrians. “I looked back at my life, I took the best bits of everything, and put them together. The more friends I spoke to about it, the more told me, ‘Charlie, this is quite good.'” Huufe was born.
“There’s an emerging trend among these big, general platforms,” Trietline describes. “The big platforms are fragmenting a bit, and smaller communities are coming out of these larger networks. People are after a unique experience, which is what’s led to the creation of separate social media platforms for other niche groups, like cycling or running. The equestrian world has so far been underserved with such platforms… and I saw the opportunity to create something bespoke and special.”
Huufe is more than another app to add to your phone: it’s a free and fully-fledged social network of its own, with functionality on both mobile and computer. On Huufe, users will be able to post their user profile, connect with other equestrians, post photos and videos and track their equine-related activity — using a smartphone, users can track their entire ride in real time. Users can create and join groups to foster community within Huufe, based on anything from geographic location to favorite breed to discipline to whatever users can come up with.
Premium users — Trietline ballparks the price for a premium account around $7 a month — can add horse profiles and then use Huufe’s management tools to track health schedules as well as a stable management calendar. Premium accounts also have accident detection technology at their disposal: the user’s smartphone will be able to detect a fall and text three designated contacts if a fall alarm is not turned off within a certain amount of time.
Users can also access the marketplace, where horses and equipment can be listed for free. Huufe’s marketplace, in conjunction with its in-depth horse profiles, offers a comprehensive look at a horse’s background and experience like no other network.
Trietline emphasizes that once the initial network is launched, Huufe will be user-driven: “Added functionality will be based on what the Huufe community wants to see.” In the works are a set of features for equestrian service providers, such as farriers and vets, to be able to build a service directory, as well as eventual gait analysis for the ride tracking feature.
While many aspects of Huufe might visually look similar to Facebook, there are a few key differences — namely, that there will be zero advertising. “That’s a strict rule for me,” Trietline states. “It will be a unique experience for users, rather than scrolling through ads to get to what you want to see.”
Instead, Huufe seeks to emphasize the community aspect through its groups feature. “It’s a more intimate experience,” Trietline describes. “Individual members’ activity will flow into the group setting and build that sense of community.”
Of course, social media has become known not only for bringing people together, but sometimes tearing them apart — Trietline was quick to address the concept of bullying. “We have a very strict code of conduct for all users, and reporting functionality for all posts so that they can be reviewed by the team for anything that goes against that code of conduct. This is a very serious point for us: that kind of behavior goes against everything we’re trying to do here, and we will not tolerate it.”
It’s clear from speaking with Charlie Trietline that his passion truly lies in developing and sustaining an equestrian community via Huufe, and it appears that no stone has been left unturned on the long road of development and design.
Alpha testing will begin in March with a small group of about thirty to forty users. “There will still be a bit of tidying up to do at this stage, and those alpha testers will be making sure everything is ready to go.”
By late spring, Trietline plans to have the beta version available for download in smartphone app stores and open online, with users able to operate in test mode. If all goes well in beta version, marketing the full version of Huufe will take place in early June.
It was great to be back working with our favourite clients – the Appaloosa Horse Club UK at their National Breed show which was held at Morton Morrell. We were trying to work it out and we’ve come to the conclusion that this was probably the 8th year we’ve covered the event.
As usual, it was a superbly run show with everyone seemingly enjoying themselves despite the rather changeable weather. At least there were no wasps this year!
In an attempt to try something new this year, we set up our studio lights on Saturday evening and were offering studio-style portraits of owners and their horses. We were delighted with the results. It is really great to be able to show these fine animals in their true light.
All of the photos are now online, and can be viewed by clicking the button below. If you used our automated shopping cart system when you visited our trailer, we’ve copied those onto the website too. You can access them by clicking on the “Carts” button below
As a thank-you to those that bought photos from us at the event, we’ve added a complimentary copy to our Facebook page – so get tagging!
£900 - standard fee / £600 – all students and University of Manchester staff / Limited subsidised places for University of Manchester students
The second Manchester Methods Summer School will be held at the University of Manchester from July 7 -11, 2014.
The school will run for one week, and participants will select a single course for the duration of the school. Each course will deliver four days of content to a five-day timetable (Monday afternoon to Friday lunch-time), building on successful methods@manchester and CCSR short-courses given throughout the year.
The school offers a range of specialised courses covering a variety of topics that are particularly relevant to postgraduate and ECR research in humanities and social sciences. The selection includes software training, qualitative and quantitative analysis, area studies, and research design. The course content is based on approaches from across the various schools in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester.
Courses are offered at competitive rates with limited subsidised places for University of Manchester students, places are limited, so please book early to secure your place. The course fee is for a single course, and includes 28 hours of face-to-face teaching over 5 days, and lunch on 4 days.
UCL – Events Calendar – In the Thick of It: What do Special Advisers do - and does it make government better or worse?
Special Advisers are now an established feature of British government: there are currently over 80 of them in Whitehall. But what do they actually do? What relations do they have with ministers and civil servants? Are they - as some have claimed - a threat to the impartiality of the civil service? Or are they essential to make democratic government work well?
Between September 04th -11th take 20% off UFV clothing and supplies and for already reduced merchandise, take an extra 20% off the last sale price!
Sale ends September 11th at 8:00pm | All sales are final on already reduced merchandise | Sale excludes textbooks & electronics.
Filed Under: *_UFV Events, Advising, College of Arts, Indigenous Student Centre, International, Theatre