Most who enter the Windows App Store hear crickets. Selection is a bit sparse on this source of software for Microsoft’s new Windows 8 touch-screen PCs and recently released Surface tablet.
But app developers at W3i, a 12-year-old Sartell, Minn., company, hear something else entirely — opportunity knocking.
They have fashioned a social-media app called FlipToast, which lets users access their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts, all in one place.
FlipToast has received star billing on the Windows App Store, shown prominently in the “social” section. It’s one of the first things Windows 8 or Surface users will spot as they swipe sideways while on the Windows App Store’s colorful home page.
FlipToast’s prominence there has more to do with a severe shortage of social-media apps in that store than the relatively modest following the social app has drawn.
But for product manager Shivani Khanna, being first is a plus.
“Being a social-media aggregator on other platforms isn’t cool anymore,” said Khanna, noting the power players such as HootSuite and TweetDeck on Windows 7, Apple’s Macintosh computers and iOS mobile devices, and the like. “We are a little late to the game.”
On the other hand, making an app for Windows 8 with its colorful new touch interface represents a shot at software stardom, largely because of the first-mover advantage, she believes.
And if her team pulls that off, she said, FlipToast buzz might spread onto the PC, Mac and iOS platforms, where variations of FlipToast are available. A version for the popular Android mobile operating system is imminent, and versions for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and new Windows Phone 8 mobile operating systems are in the works.
The various versions of FlipToast look and behave differently because they are carefully tailored to their respective platforms.
On Windows 8, the app uses a touch-friendly side-scrolling format with big, easy-to-tap squares or rectangles corresponding to Twitter tweets, Facebook updates, Instagram photos, friend lists, birthday reminders and the like.
FlipToast’s presence on the much-hyped Surface tablet is particularly significant because the tablet uses a Windows 8 variation called RT that is incapable of running traditional Windows apps, only the newer, touch-centric ones. This means social-media apps such as TweetDeck don’t work on the Surface.
The developers said they eventually will add other social networks, such as App.net and Google+.
The seven-person FlipToast team — including a community manager, a user-interface designer and several engineers — is a semi-autonomous part of W3i, a company that helps app authors increase the visibility and profitability of their products.
FlipToast development kicked off about two years ago as a “skunkworks project,” said Khanna, who worked with one or two other people to create a prototype.
Presented with somewhat crude but functional software in late 2011, Khanna’s superiors were impressed enough with the product to make it a new “social business unit” within the company, she recalled. The team was given nearly $1 million to perfect the product (including the flavors for desktop computers and iOS devices) and add more bodies.
Around that time, Microsoft came calling. The software giant was desperate for apps with which to populate its Windows App Store, and it gave the FlipToast team support and encouragement, Khanna said.
“We had 24 development days to prove what we could do on the platform,” she recalled. “There was no real documentation, but we had access to their senior software evangelist. We worked all hours of the day. If we emailed Microsoft at 10 p.m., we got a reply at five minutes past 10.”
Being first on the Windows 8 platform “has its pros and cons,” Khanna said. The early versions of FlipToast, running on pre-release versions of Windows 8, drew criticism. This was partly because the app pestered users with suggestions for other apps, causing it to be branded “adware.”
The promotional features were removed, and “all our critics turned into advocates,” Khanna said. “That was amazing.”
