Do you miss cross-posting on Windows Phone 8.1? Path may be your answer

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

Windows Phone 8.1 brings a lot in terms of raw functions to end-users, but some things are going missed. For instance, the relevancy of the Me Tile is greatly diminished since notifications were moved to the Notification Center (and the stream was detached).

But perhaps the biggest function that people miss is the ability to cross-post status updates to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. We explained the reasoning behind this in our guide on the new Social Extensibility framework in 8.1, but explanations in and of themselves don’t make people happy. And you’ve said as much.

Luckily, there is one way you can sort of get this feature back, though it’s far from perfect: Path.

Path is a private social network that finally arrived on Windows Phone earlier this year, and like Instagram, it is perpetually in ‘beta’ status. Its last update was in February, which doesn’t make us feel too comfortable, and the app maintains a miserable 2.6 (out of 5) rating on the Store. Yikes.

Posting on Path

There is one thing that Path is good for though: mass posting to your social networks. Path lets you cross publish your status to these networks:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Foursquare
  • Tumblr

That’s actually more than what 8.0 did, and it works pretty well. It’s not the fastest method, as you will need to launch the app, hit the ‘+’ button, select the quote icon and then write, making this far from the Me Tile days in 8.0, but we’ll let you decide if it’s useful.

4th & Mayor checkin

In theory, we suppose a developer could make an app that’s sole function lets you cross-post to various social networks, and then hook that into the Me Tile via that Social Extensibility framework. Check out how Foursquare app 4th & Mayor did this recently. Actually, the developers of Path could do that as well, if they ever decide to optimize for 8.1.

In other words, there’s hope here, folks.

We’ll let you decide if this Path trick is a suitable alternative for now, but our gut tells us that once developers start utilizing the new framework, we should see some interesting creations come to the Store.

Need Path? Grab it here in the Store. It’s free and easy to setup. Let us know if you think this helps or suggest your own solutions below!

  • Windows Phone 8.1 Tips, Tricks and How To

Thanks, Benjamin C., for the tip!

QR: path

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

118 Comments
  • I love PATH.
  • Help is on the way...
  • Hopefully for Path update is on the way
  • You just reminded me:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5lPBwl0ufY
  • Someone in the forums turned me on to this app, One Love, which does the same thing with Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=3b8ef4e4-cc50-4425-baf7-d22764597b8b
  • I've used OneLove too!
  • I recognized that tweets in the people hub won't open in twitter app, but in IE :/
  • That is because of Microsoft not the app developer. I was recently conversing with the Alphega developer and he mentioned that the app has the open in an "another app" on Android but not on windows because Microsoft hasn't enabled that feature.
  • Its actually the app. The current twitter app isn't optimized for 8.1. The beta twitter app that was recently taken down would have that ability
  • +1 The Twitter app just needs to be updated. WP8(.1) apps support launch URI's. In other words Windows Phone does support app launching natively @mjohnson0584 ;)
  • Nice article as usual Daniel :)
    Who wants to bet that the next article will be about captain America:TWS being released for Wp?? ;)
  • :P
  • HOW DID YOU KNOW!? :)
  • he's from the future
  • Haha!I'm a magician :p  
  • All wpcentral data are belong to him.
  • LOL, that's a unique thought :P but I assure you that's not the case :P
  • The loss of the functionality of the "Me" tile I'd a big step backwards. MS needs to listen and put together some sort of new "Me" Tile, even if it is only running as an aggregator and not as deeply integrated as before. If it too were a separate App, than it could be rapidly updated when the subscribed social networks changed their APIs.
  • Agree
  • As far as an aggregator, do you mean something different than the "What's New" section of the people hub?
  • So far, I only see my own posts, and comments on my own posts, not the posts of my friends, so its only aggregating what I already have seen. Not very useful in its current form. :S
  • The "Me" tile shows all of your posts.  If you open "People" and swipe over to "Whats new" you see everything from Facebook, Twitter, and Linkdin.  Is my phone different than everyone elses?
  • My point being all this ised to be available in ONE Tole, plus the anilitynto respond and to be notified when there were posts by your friends. Spreading that over the Notification center, the People tile, and the Me tile is inefficient and annoying, not an improvement IMHO.      
  • The "Me" tile used to show when someone made a comment on something that you were involved on facebook or if someone tweeted somethin to you. They have moved allt his to the Notification Center which is ALL WRONG. The mail apps show that you've got new mail but it's also in the notification center, why can't the do that with the "Me" tile too? It's so bad. the Notification Center is good fot notifications from apps that you dont have on your startscreen. Th "Me" tile was awesome before they just needed it to show message from alla you social apps. They claim that they need to have apps so they can update them quickly without updating the whole OS which is good but why can't they then make everything an app. Messaging, Me tile, Music hub. 8.1 is worse than 8.0 :(
  • Yes, bring back full functionality of the Me Tile.
  • Yup. Definitely needed. Stupid decision by Microsoft. In fact Microsoft have removed all the features from 8.1 which I used to use quite a lot in 8.0. Need to find a way to rollback to wp 8.0...
  • this has to return please!
  • Kinda liked it for a few days then it got old quick,not liking the new setup on 8.1 .Always used the Me Tile,now I have to open the Facebook app all the time:/Just like you said, it needs to be a separate app that can be updated with constant APIs changes from Facebook,Tweeter and others.Don't care for the action center wish they would scrap it not needed with live tiles.
  • AGREE!!!!!!! I NEED IT! One of the couple things that genuinely made me sad is the loss of all original functionality of the 'Me' tile! I loved posting to my FB and Twitter simultaneously and checking both feeds in the same spot.... I get that the new system is a new framework, so that when FB/Twitter change their API, it will no longer break our app or force MS to update the whole OS everytime FB/Twitter change their APIs. But still.. I miss both posting and checking my feeds being in one spot. Hope they give us that back.
  • I understand that having the Me Tile so ingrained in the OS meant many of the key functions of it becoming broken due to the update cycles of the services themselves but could Microsoft not have taken the same approach with the Me Tile as they did with Music, Video, and Games Hub and simply make them apps? Daniel I did read the previous article on why things are the way they are but to me it seems as though Microsoft only took one step forward with these other services and then two back for things like the Me Tile and pictures, not a fan of having to select things like Facebook or OneDrive just to be redirected back out of the app to see what I had wanted. I'm not even sure if the Me Tile could be pulled from the OS and function as an app and maybe that remains the problem, maybe Microsoft would prefer the use of the Action Notification Centre. Whatever the reasons I do miss post once post everywhere.
  • A update Could solve that problem and make the ME Tile a app.If Microsoft can make Cortana a separate app from the OS they can do the same with the Me Tile,and we should have a choice to run the notification center or just use the live tiles.
  • typo. you typed Tumbler--drop the "e"
  • Fixd
  • Lol @Daniel. cant stop laughing :') :D
  • Every platform is merging their messeging while WP is separating them out...smh  
  • This sucks. Big time. Many reasons for those I joined WP are disrupted in favor of features that the others had. At this point I might as well move back to iOS or Android, 'cause there is just the UI left at the price of a still missing apps I like.
  • Sadly, I sorta agree with you.
  • I feel like you wrote this article for me Daniel. :) Although I SMH. I miss ME. I'll try it but I think it wont be the same.
  • @daniel omg man please give link for wallpaper
  • Search our site for 'PolyScreen', it's free, make your own or the same one.
  • I can't figure out how to make this one. Also for some reason the app saves photos I do make in horrible resolution... Please
  • Introducing Windows Phone 8.1--one step backwards at a time.
  • More like 10 steps forward and 1 step backward to be honest
  • Lolz?
  • If you're a man...post as a man..cross posters just confuse me...:P
  • ba da dum
  • Took me a sec, but I lol'd. You're lucky the social justice police don't frequent WPC
  • It wasn't unnoticed, just ignored.
  • Wouldn't the easiest solution be to link your social networks and just post on one?
  • I miss this feature the most :-(
  • This still doesn't suffice Daniel, I know you're simply the messenger, but the me tile/messenger hub was a feature that brought a lot of people over to WP. Losing that function is priceless....
  • i want the old me tile back! 
  • Need the integration back. That was the main feature Ben the pc guy used to show to all consumers in his event and if that integration isn't there then how we can say posting on WP is faster now.
  • WP smoked by WP.
  • LOL exactly!
  • Ouch! That is almost too true to be funny. Almost...
  • Well, this nice little app here by Marco Siccardi allows us to integrate it into the Me Hub and cross post to Facebook and Twitter like we used to do before 8.1. LinkedIn is supposed to be supported soon too.
    http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=ee42cb1d-8a68-41c6-9c0c-d3e3fc61d6ea
  • Devs to the rescue
  • Thank you for this! Downloaded and it works great for fb and twitter. Dev says he's adding LinkedIn next. Much smaller and simpler than path, no extra registration, transparent tile that goes straight to compose screen. If you want the functionality back this is the best solution I've seen so far.
  • Speak of the devil. Interesting concept, still needs some work though, but will continue testing.
  • This is why I'm glad to be part of this community.
  • I'll try this one. Thanks for the share ,:)
  • I think what shocks me most is that Microsoft made it so you can only select ONE of the networks connected to People hub now... even though I still have FB and Twitter (Beta) connected, I can only choose one. Why would they make it so there's an API to integrate and then take away the ability to hit more than one at a time?!
  • There's another.....   One Love   http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/one-love/3b8ef4e4-cc50-4425-...  
  • Lol funny I just posted this too, guess more ppl know about this app than I thought
  • I used to showcase this feature to all of my android and iPhone user "friends" and they all liked it. For wpusers in the social networking world it was a useful and streamlined forum for posting and checking information. This (for me at least) is literally a loss of usability for the OS. I can't fathom the misguided logic I am confident they used to argue taking this function out of the me tile.
  • One Love is a good app for cross-platform posting. It's simpler than PATH I'd say
  • How is that Cortana tile background been made?? Looks intriguing :D
  • What's with the 2.6⭐ average?
  • I wonder why... A beta app that hasn't seen an update in months?! I wouldn't touch it, not even with rubber gloves and a 2 meters pole.
  • You can also use a Buffer app like Stack to post to Twitter, F'book and LinkedIn simultaneously. 
  • Try IFTTT, it's a website that does this for you.
  • Having a unified message center to me is what made WP unique. Being able to switch message types within the same thread was so eay and perfect. Now clicking only to have to wait for an app to open and have all the message types buried in their own apps makes the WP just an ordinary phone. I still enjoy the platform but why is it that it seems with every new version that it loses features? FM Radio GONE. Lesser XBox Music app. Games now has no real purpose since the games are now cluttering up the regular app list. It just seems that each version while trying to catch up with the other players just keeps getting less and less unique. What is next? Loss of live tiles and then sea of icons approach of Droid and iOS?
  • That's what has frustrated me most about the mentality behind this.  Former Android and iOS users pushing Microsoft to make the OS behave like those other system.  I didn't WANT it to behave like those systems!  I didn't think there was anything that needed "catching up".  Hubs, integration...these were aspects that made WP far and away better.  Now....ugh.
  • Hopefully the music app gets better quick with it updating every two weeks. It'd be nice to have the games in the hub only as an option in settings (photo editing apps would be nice to see under a photo hub too, that would bring consistency). FM Radio is its own separate app though
  • I'd like to be able to post links with preview like before.
  • Am already feeling sorry for Joe Belfiore. He's really gonna be bombarded with questions this Friday...
  • Well I don't feel sorry for him AT ALL.
  • I'm sure that he'll soothe any pain with bottles of champaigne on his yacht, this weekend. ;)
  • Yes.  Given the shot, I'm definitely going to hammer him about bringing some semblence of message and contact hubs back.  Also, the volume controls are crap now.  I never, EVER wanted separate volume controls.  When I press the flipping vol-up and vol-down buttons I want ALL volume to respond.  Now I have to jump through so many stupid hoops to adjust all the volumes it's just stupid.
  • I'm working on an app that does this, plus a lot more ...
  • You need a beta tester? I'm game. Just give it reasonable permissions.
  • Always! Can you PM me or contact me @NikRolls? I'm probably a couple of weeks away from Alpha but always need testers. Re the concept, it's similar to One Love mentioned above but has some very cool additional features.
  • Add me in too... :)
  • Yes I do miss cross posting, a lot, and this Path app is not a satisfactory substitute. What I don't get is, if any dev could create an app just for this feature why the hell doesn't Microsoft do it instead?! It's like those morons had a meeting to decide how could they screw up all the good things Windows Phone 8 had.
  • Interesting. Just 2 days ago USA Today did an article of "5 Cool Things You Can Do With Windows Phone".  Well, posting to multiple networks through Me Hub is one of them.  They get good press and then take this away.  Ugh. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/talkingtech/2014/04/26/five-cool-things-to-do-with-your-windows-phone/8119179/
  • dalydose, I dont have 8.1 yet still rocking 8.0, glad I am the more I read about the new version, but I was watching the video you posted and it looks like to me the reporter was using 8.1.  Even the video is labeld 5 Cool things you can do with 8.1..... am I wrong?  He had transparency tiles (or was he using a app to create the three tile into a personal picture?),he had a tile that was grouped for photo apps (again might have been a app or did i miss this feature in 8.0?).  And the last thing I noticed he said he could still post to his mutiple social networks and use the people hub.  I don't doubt you guys are right since you are all "developers" testing the update for MSFT ;) but I am stumped how he had what appeared  to have options from both version (according to the communities post).  Cant wait for Fridays AMA....
  • Yes
  • I've been increasingly fustrated by the 8.1 integration removal.  Anyone remeber the "Smoked by Windows Phone" advertising campaign?  Guess what..gone..totally gone.  Pull up those videos on youtube and watch.  Every time they won, they utilized the integration features.  Heck, someone take a 8.0 and 8.1 handset and give me a timing as to how long it takes before you can take a picture, share it on fb, and take another picture.  It went from 2 seconds to about 40(I'm assuming the old method would background upload because the new one takes several seconds for the fb app to load, then I get to hit yet another button(and not be able to tag), then wait 10 seconds minimum(on wifi) for it to upload, then back out of the app, back out of the picture, to get back to taking another photo.  I used to show it off at clubs and bars and it was the reason I got a few people to switch to WP.  They are all going to be pretty unhappy at me once they get this upgrade.  Both due to the much longer time it takes to do routine tasks AND the drop in battery life due to having to keep apps up to help minimize the delay.  Hopefully they are listening to feedback right now.  They desperately need to get this cleaned up before regular users get ahold of this.  I haven't seen any docs on the framework, but, it would be easy to replicate how things worked previously with a "needs no UI" path.  They obviously are already sending a parameter for pictures.  By having a "needs no UI", you could have the app close itself when done with photos, and never even load up by having a simple text box data entry in the Me hub.  To make it even more full featured, you'd have a simple setting for "Full featured(load app)" or "Quick post" in the Me hub.  When "Quick Post" is selected, it would give a list of apps that support the "needs no UI" and you select the ones you want to use for multiple posting.  There's -zero- reason this couldn't have been done right.  You duplicate the existing functionality while giving extensibility to other apps.
  • AMEN to that.
  • +2
  • Exactly...the "smoked by Windows Phone" could never happen now.  It's embarrassing how horrible WP has become.  The only redeeming quality about 8.1 is Cortana.  The rest of what changed, in my opinion, is crap.
  • Great idea!
  • I'd rather have the Me tile fixed. It was awesome
  • The people app is why I switched to windows phone. I kind of feel like I did when iOS 7 told me the future of UI was a solid white screen.
  • I honestly see alot of tho happening because Microsoft wants to get more apps in the store so simple tasks like this would be taken away. Look at tho way as soon as a feature is taken away then an app appears to take its place
  • I like your suggestion of having an app dedicated to this and being built around the new Social Framework.
  • Count me in as another fan of the previous functionality of the Me tile. Not too happy and one of the biggest reasons I haven't upgraded to 8.1. Oh yeah and are there any popular social apps available that are not in Beta? Seems like everything is in Beta forever!
  • Cross posting is completely lame imo
  • Am missing integrated Facebook on 8.1... Is there a way that i can get that feature back?? I feel so proud when i upload pics on Facebook ,it says uploaded via windows phone :D:D
  • I've been developing an app to do this for a week now! =)
    Problem is that I'm finishing my news reader app and I work at the same time. It gets complicated.
  • nvm i'm only on Facebook.
  • My Twitter feed is dead since I upgraded. Dont know how many of my followers that actually read what I post on there but... I would like to cross-post. :(
  • What if the People Hub was a standalone app? Then it could be updated more regularly. I was hoping for more of a "plug-in" or "add-in" type approach for the people hub where you could install new social network components with some basic functionality.
  • Bring back the people hub. This really is a big step back.
  • People who post updates to all their social networks at once are annoying anyway... You can't post a tweet to Facebook and have them look right.
  • can't find my friend :'(
  • So the Me tile is no longer there on 8.1?
  • Path is not an answer. Buffer is.
  • I have me tile like on WP 8
  • Path really need update
  • thanks @daniel .... on Android I was used to tweetcaster / tweetdeck clients...coz they also allowed posting tweets beyond 140 characters....and now on Windows Phone 8.1 ..I love Path more than ever :)
  • I really do miss the integrated social stuff. The fb app is just bleh but oh well. Nice to have options like this!
  • Sorry to say it,but WP is probably on it's last legs,at least in the U.S.
    Can't imagine a device with almost no market share abandoning the features that made the device useable to the few owners who did buy it surviving without those features.
  • Microsoft did listen to the consumers and brought back albeit partially the start menu for Windows OS and if we beleive the rumours about 8.2/Windows 9, its completely back. So maybe in time it will be the same with the WP OS and they will bring back the ME tile integration across all social media platforms. This is the only thing I have to say Im dispaoointed with, with the 8.1 update, I can live with the remainder of the 'little flaws'
  • This are some good solutions to the one post problem! Thanks
  • What's that wallpaper he's using in the pic ?? I wants it.
  • This app really need update!