If you have been following us regularly, Pokki is not new to you as we'd featured it recently. . But for those who are still unaware of it, let me explain you a bit. Just like you have an app store for your smartphones, making everything simpler and fun, similarly 'Pokki' is an app store not for your phone but for your desktop. It is a start-up and has received an overwhelming response. Before I came to know about this desktop friendly app store, I could not think of such a great solution. But thanks to Blake Machado, who has come up with this wonderful concept.

Thus, making my and other Pokki users' work much simpler. Let's have a quick conversation with Blake and get to know his journey from the first day of the project till present:


Blake, please introduce yourself to E-junkies.

Hello E-junkies! My name is Blake Machado and I'm a co-founder of SweetLabs. For the past year I've been guiding the product design of our new product, Pokki.


In this era of smartphones, how did you think of coming up with a desktop app store?

Great question. Obviously smart phones and the app ecosystems that have evolved are really amazing! The iPhone AppStore and Android Marketplace have given developers new opportunities to reach millions of users, and users are able to access better apps more easily than ever before. I love the app experience on my phone but I spend most of my time on a desktop, as do billions of other people, and the experience there hasn't really changed much from the last decade. What has changed is that users are downloading less software and accessing more of their apps through a browser, and browsers aren't all that great as an application interface. Browsers and the desktop have really fallen behind smart phones for both users and developers, and we thought we could change that.

With Pokki we're solving problems users have on the desktop - like accessing their web apps and getting real-time notifications - and we're making it easy for web developers to build apps that tap into the desktop. So, yes, Pokki is an app store on the desktop but it blurs the lines between desktop apps and web apps. For users, they're able to easily access their favorite web apps, and for developers they're able to build these great desktop apps using web technologies like HTML5. The desktop is the largest and most-ignored technology ecosystem out there and we think it presents a great opportunity for web developers to leverage. It's like waterfront real-estate that's going unused today.
























Were you skeptical about 'Pokki' before launching it? 

Any time you've been working on an internal project for a year, it's usually pretty hard to be objective about it. Leading up to the launch we were very excited and eager to finally launch Pokki. You never know how people will receive it, but seeing it come together in the final weeks really boosted our confidence. We felt like we had built not only a great platform but some really great apps - like Gmail, Tweeki, Facebook - apps we were all using every day.

Our skepticism was really around how developers would perceive Pokki. Launching without Mac OSX support was a risk but so far developers are really excited!










































What kind of response 'Pokki' has received so far?

An overwhelmingly positive response! We could not be happier. I was up all night making sure the launch went smoothly, and when I checked the Pokki twitter account that morning, I was blown away. Every ten seconds there was a tweet talking about how awesome Pokki was! It had been an indescribable amount of work for the team to get to that launch, so to see the user response just hours later was really special. It was unlike any other launch I've been a part of.


Developers all over the world are invited to develop their Pokkies. What is the idea behind it?

Pokki is a platform for web developers to build desktop apps and the goal of the beta launch is exactly that. We've tried to make it as easy as possible for developers to build their own Pokkies, and all approved Pokkies will be available in the Pokki store so users can easily discover and install them. Pokki is a great way for web developers to reach new users and drive engagement to new or existing web apps. We'll also be offering monetization options to developers in the future so they can make money from creating great Pokkies.


What 'Pokkies' are you planning to create?

We created the initial Pokkies for the beta launch to show off the capabilities of the platform. These Pokkies are examples of how beautiful and rich an HTML5 application can really be. Going forward we really want to help other developers create amazing Pokkies, so that will be our primary focus. That said we'll continue improving our Pokkies and we'll probably release some new ones over the next few months as we find the time.


What was the biggest challenge in this whole process from conceiving the idea till present date?

The hardest part was hitting our launch date of June 28th. We had a hard date as we were sponsoring a conference in Vegas called Future of Web Apps, and we had to give a key note and press was scheduled to go out. We'd planned that date more than six months in advance realizing there were many unknowns. We were still hiring key roles, we were not sure how long certain features would take. For the month leading up to launch, things were crazy, but we were all so passionate about this product it did not matter. The team came together in those final weeks and sprinted longer, faster and harder than any other team I've been a part of. It was intense, exhausting and ultimately rewarding.


According to you, what are the best three features of 'Pokki'?

For me the best features of Pokki are real-time notifications, ease of installing and accessing apps, and the beauty of the apps. They feel like great apps - familiar but new at the same time.


A final word for our readers?

Thanks for reading! We are at the very beginning of our journey and we can't wait to watch where it goes from here. If you haven't checked Pokki out be sure to visit http://www.pokki.com.