BuddyPoke! (partially lost online Flash widget; 2008)

The logo for BuddyPoke.

Status: Partially Lost

BuddyPoke! was a hit OpenSocial application developed by Randall Ho and Dave Westwood. It was released in 2008, and became very popular amongst people on social networks like MySpace and Orkut. The app enabled people to create an avatar (A BuddyPoke), and then interact with other users by poking (emote). Many updates were added since its initial launch, like GIFs, backgrounds, pets, etc.

BuddyPoke traces all the way back to 2007, when Randall Ho and Dave Westwood made BuddyLabs, a 3D pet widget for social media. However, it met with little to no success, and the app was abandoned. Afterwards, character customization became popular and they thought of how people put time into avatars without any cool interactions, or even buying games just for the character customization or "dress-up" rather than to play the game itself. The idea of BuddyPoke was then created.

In 2012, a mobile version of BuddyPoke was released for iOS and Android, with updated character models and the feature to make talking avatar videos.

Around 2014-2016, BuddyPoke closed down^[1] due to unknown reasons. Due to the complex structure of the app being split into 3 SWF files and uses a Flex UI, it was hard to archive and/or rebuild therefore many newer versions are lost. However, some earlier versions of BuddyPoke are playable and have been found due to being singular SWFs with everything built inside.

Discoveries

Around May 2021, an early SWF file for BuddyPoke was archived by BuddyPoke Repoked, a project created by an unknown user which was short-lived. This version can be run in Flash Player easily.

On August 19th 2021, Internet Archive user Ryuodo uploaded a SWF of BuddyPoke dating from May 8th 2008.^[2]

It wasn't until August 13th, 2022, when LMW member Lovely_YT made a thread about the search for BuddyPoke^[3], which they have been searching for many months prior. This led to the BuddyPoke search being more widespread.

On August 27th 2023, Lovely_YT contacted Dave Westwood, the co-founder and developer of BuddyPoke about the SWF file. On September 17th, Dave had finally replied to the email. He had mentioned how the earlier versions used a singular SWF, while the later versions used 3 split SWF files (a loader, the 3D engine, and the UI.) and was hard to rebuild, so it wasn't simple. Dave had also mentioned he is trying to bring the app back with WebGPU, a new 3D technology developed by Google. No date on the app's comeback or when a new SWF will be found is known.