By Andrew Shepherd

Facebook ‘likes’ mobile app created by Regina trio

Nov 6, 2014 | 5:23 AM

The creators of a Regina-based social networking app are getting ready to network with the pros.

RealTalk is a mobile app that was launched at the end of October. It connects you with a random person in your area for a 60 second video call. Successful interactions will result in a match and allow both users to chat through the app.

“The idea behind it is getting away from the behind the picture profile messaging and talking to real people,” said CEO Anthony Haid.

Before the app even reached 1,000 downloads, Facebook invited the creators of Real Talk to its headquarters in San Francisco. They are one of the lucky startup applications that will attend the one day orientation called FbStart on November 20. RealTalk will get $20,000 along with practical help from Facebook.

“They’re going to guide us and manage us, hopefully, to gain as much users as possible,” said Haid.

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The challenge for RealTalk is getting a community of users on the app which has seen the most success today in Regina, Atlanta and Orlando. The U.S. locations are popular because of the dense college populations in those area.

There are a plethora of social networking apps available for download but only a fraction of them become hugely successful. For example, the picture and video sharing app SnapChat has been valued at $10 billion dollars.

RealTalk is the product of Haid, his managing partner Yanni Laloudakis and developer Adam Geiger of Castle Ventures Inc.

Although they’re not expecting to meet Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the Regina trio has high hopes of success after receiving some valuable insight, tips and tricks from Facebook.

“We’re extremely excited because I don’t think there’s really anybody else out there better to learn from.”

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