FlapIt takes your social media achievements for an analog spin

By Brandon Widder January 7, 2015

We live in a digital world saturated with social media platforms, whether talking big-name giants like Facebook and Twitter or the swath of lesser-known entities that lie at the cusp of breaking big. However, if you’re a business, wouldn’t it be nice to flaunt and advertise your social media presence in a manner that’s more effective than a simple sticker that reads “Like us on Facebook”? FlapIt and its eponymous device seems to think so.

Drawing inspiration from the split-flap clocks of the mid-’60s, the quirky counter that debuted at CES 2015 manages to showcase a variety of different statistics on its seven-character display. Although the customizable counter tracks popular metrics regarding your business — i.e. your likes, subscriptions, and social media follows — it can also be programmed to showcase nearly any message you might want to convey once connected to the same network as your computer or smartphone.

Photo credit: Digital Trends / Brandon Widder — Photo credit: Digital Trends / Brandon Widder Image used with permission by copyright holder

You can easily program the counter to display the promotional price of a particular item, for instance, or advertise your store’s ongoing discount. It can display metrics up to 999,999 and additionally features 11 pre-installed logos for some of the more popular platforms you might utilize on the daily (Yelp, Instagram, Facebook, etc.), adding a bit of colorful flair to a product that’s rooted in the days of banana seats and Ouija boards.

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FlapIt is currently slated for launch in April 2015, with a preorder price set at $300. Is the connected, rectangular device necessary? No. Is it a tad egotistic? Yes. Still, there’s no denying its appeal — that is, so long as your hallmark parfait is rated favorably.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Brandon Widder is a multimedia journalist and a staff writer for Digital Trends where he covers technology news, how-to…

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