Overview
Worked as a frontend developer on Freespoke, a search engine and news aggregation platform designed as an alternative to Google. Co-founded by Todd Ricketts (co-owner of the Chicago Cubs) and Kristin Jackson, Freespoke delivers unfiltered search results alongside news stories labeled by perspective (Left, Middle, Right), with a strong emphasis on user privacy — no tracking, no data selling, no content suppression.
What I Built
The platform features a full search engine interface with web, news, image, and video results, a news aggregation system that categorizes stories by editorial perspective, a Censored Stories discovery section surfacing underreported content, Chrome browser extension for default search integration, and a responsive UI designed to handle real-time search queries with rich, multi-source result layouts. The frontend needed to present complex, multi-perspective information clearly and intuitively while maintaining fast load times critical for a search engine experience.
Business Impact
Founders
Todd Ricketts, Kristin Jackson
Founded
2022
Headquarters
Chicago, IL
Backers
Ricketts family (TD Ameritrade, Chicago Cubs)
Users
Hundreds of thousands
Platforms
Web, iOS, Android, Chrome Extension
Linked In Followers
669+
Notable Press
Crain's Chicago Business, PR Newswire, Megyn Kelly podcast
Social Impact
Donates 30% of premium subscription proceeds to anti-human-trafficking organizations