A former student hopes to transform the way users access social media with a new app.
SquareAll, an app created by former student Terri Alani, Class of 1975, with the help of colleagues Shane Cormier and Stephen Araiza, allows users to manage all social media — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. — in a single application.
Cormier, who developed the app, said the app was created by combining the interfaces of each social media app into one app.
“I want everyone to use social media in a more compact way,” Cormier said. “The name SquareAll represents boxing all of social media into one app. We’re squaring everything, SquareAll.”
Cormier said he got the idea of SquareAll while overhearing a conversation.
“I was at T-Mobile and there were girls saying they were getting sick and tired of using a lot of data and space to have the social media alone,” Cormier said. “Facebook alone is 14 megabytes and SquareAll has all of your social media apps in 3 megabytes.”
Alani said she and Cormier were working on another project when someone pointed out how tired they were of having to access all their different apps individually.
“We thought this would be a great idea to combine everything,” Alani said. “It’s just what people are asking for, and we listened.”
With SquareAll users can either scroll down a list and select an app to take them to the individual site or press on an arrow at the bottom of the screen to access sites. The app initially cost 99 cents, but Alani said the decision was made to make the app free Oct. 2.
“We charged in the beginning, then we realized people really like trying things out first, and if they like it they’ll continue to use it,” Alani said. “I want people to experience it and help their social media experience. Not so much make a dollar off of it.”
Alani said the app is being marketed in Asia — including in Japan and India.
“Wherever Facebook goes or Twitter goes, so does this app,” Alani said. “We have the world stage.”
Cormier said because they just released the app, it is easier to market in Asian countries because it’s cheaper compared to marketing in the U.S.
“I want to dominate the Asian market, and then I want to build value for the application,” Cormier said. “That way when we release here in the United States, we already have built a name for ourselves.”
Cormier said SquareAll has been consistently growing in popularity now that Facebook and Instagram pages are up and running.
“We’re getting about 45-80 downloads a day,” Cormier said. “Next month or month [and] a half we should be airing commercials on late night TV and YouTube.”
SquareAll is available to download on all Apple products and will soon be available for Android and Windows products.
