Kickapps Archive

Here are a few updates from a variety of NYC-based startups.

KickApps

White-label social networking provider KickApps has announced the launch of “Custom Community Insights” today. The insights are provided on a dashboard for community managers. Senior VP of Marketing Michael Chin tells me that, “each widget can then be shared with others in the company or individual dashboards can be created for different departments or uses.” Some of the items KickApps customers can track include trending topics, influential community members, most popular media and most active discussions. I wish more forum software providers offered a similar dashboard. Check out all of our KickApps coverage.

WebCollage

Content exchange provider WebCollage has announced a partnership with LivePerson today. VP of Marketing Jed Alpert describes the partnership as, “combining the best of WebCollage’s online POS marketing with LivePerson’s real-time engagement platform.” From the release, ” Companies will now be able to reach potential customers with live sales reps at the point of research on channel partner websites and influence their product selection process.” The joint solution will be marketed to brands that distribute complex products and services  including insurance, consumer electronics and high-tech manufacturers. Check out all of our WebCollage coverage.

Here are a few updates from a variety of NYC-based startups.

uTest

Last week we posted a demo presentation and some notes about uTest. This week the company announced the launch of mobile application testing. They currently have 15,000 testers from 150 countries available to complete the tests that companies setup although I am not sure what percentage are mobile testers. The company noted regarding the launch, "uTest provides real-time access to testers with a wide range of locations, languages and platforms, specifically important to mobile app developers; having many unique dimensions in a testing matrix is a reality (and a daunting task) for mobile developers."

KickApps

This week KickApps announced a new partnership with Hearst-Argyle Television which will bring the KickApps social media app to Hearst’s nation-wide network of television-station websites. The program is named "u local" and will be pushed out to 25 television websites during the first half of 2009. The first u local website went live in December 2008 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Check out all of our KickApps coverage.

Pingg

When we interviewed Pingg founder Lorien Gabel last month, we discussed the partnership Pingg has with Martha Stewart. Stewart is an investor in Pingg and this week they two companies announced the next step in integration. The release notes, "Martha Stewart and her team of expert designers have culled a special collection of diverse, stunning images from MSLO’s extensive content libraries that can now be incorporated into online invitations and e-cards."

NY-based KickApps has announced the launch of a new application platform named "App Studio" this morning. The App Studio concept takes web applications and content, bundles everything together and creates a simple piece of code that any KickApps publisher can integrate into their site. Third-party publishers can also push their applications to the KickApps publishers through the App Studio. The company is announcing that Meebo and Yahoo Maps are the first two partners to join the platform.

Web developers need to submit their applications to KickApps to be included in the App Studio. It appears the applications must be in Flash to be accepted. The App Studio uses a WYSIWYG interface which should make it easy for KickApps publishers to integrate applications from the App Studio into their websites.

It would be interesting to find out if KickApps is working on opening the App Studio to work on any website regardless if KickApps powers the site. Opening up the studio would provide more usage and could provide a good way to get more visibility into KickApps.

In September KickApps launched a pretty innovative and customizable video monetization service.

Here’s the latest news from a variety of NY-based startups. If you are a NY-based startup and have news about your company, send it in.

KickApps

KickApps announced today that they have hired David Lapter as Chief Financial Officer and Tom Gaffney to head up the company’s expanding Customer Success division. Apparently the Customer Success division works on strategy and creative services.I’ve never heard of a Customer Success division but I like the idea! Check out all of our KickApps coverage.

Outbrain

Outbrain launched an update to their widget this week called the "Link Zapper". We run the Outbrain recommendations widget on CN (you can see it at the end of this post). The widget recommends other posts both from CN and from our whitelist of partner sites. The Link Zapper allows us to easily remove a link that might not be a good fit for the source story. It’s a very manual process and while I am hoping for some automated tools in the future, it’s a good start. Check out all of our Outbrain coverage.

ZocDoc

We’ve covered ZocDoc extensively on CN and I believe it could be the breakout star of 2009. ZocDoc provides online management for doctor, dentist and other healthcare practitioners. Forbes magazine named ZocDoc the winner of their small business contest. The announcement came this week and ZocDoc won $100,000 to further develop and expand their service.

Magnify.net

Earlier this week Magnify.net announced the launch of Thwoop.com, an online community for featured entertainment content and user-contributed videos. The concept for Thwoop.com came from children’s toy e-tailer Brand Performance and the site will be powered by Magnify.net. Check out all of our Magnify.net coverage.

NY-based KickApps has announced a new partnership with the New Orleans Hornets NBA team today. The partnership brings a new "Hornets Fanzone" social network which includes fan videos, photos, blogs, chat, a message board and groups.

What I’ve found with the social networks that KickApps powers for most of the sports teams they are working with is that it’s nearly impossible to find the actual social network on the main sports team’s website. On the new Hornets deal today, it’s listed in their rotating news area but I can’t find it elsewhere. The Seattle Seahaws installation is also missing or I can’t seem to find it. On the positive side, the NY Rangers site seems to display a widget for the social network on the homepage.

While it’s great that KickApps has signed a variety of pro sports teams to social networking deals, if the networks are nearly impossible to find, what good is that for KickApps, the sports team or the fans?

Here’s a sample of the videos on the Hornets social network – watch the hornet mascots get down and boogie! Update: it looks like the widget embeds all of the videos, not just the one with the mascots – it’s on the right if you want to watch it.

Just a day after NY-based KickApps launched their video monetization player, today they have announced support for foreign languages within the white label social networking platform. Any site powered by KickApps can be translated into French, Spanish, German, Italian or Brazilian Portuguese.

Marketing SVP Michael Chin walked me through how the translation works. Basically all "terms" within the KickApps platform are presented to the site owner and can be customized. You can customize the text on a term-by-term basis or download a spreadsheet with all 30,000+ terms, edit them and then upload the document. The edits can be text or HTML. I wish that Drupal, the CMS that powers CN, had a process like what KickApps has for changing terms. Remember that while this is build for languages, you can use this localization functionality to change words across the site.

Today’s announcement will allow KickApps to expand their platform and customer base internationally.

Note: KickApps is a sponsor of our sister site HTMLCenter.

NY-based KickApps has announced the launch of a new video player product that allows Web publishers to inject advertising into the video stream. The "KickApps Widget & Video Player Studio" takes your videos from anywhere on the Web, packages them with an ad and generates a widget that can be embedded anywhere. The widgets can be used on sites powered by KickApps or any other hosting provider.

KickApps Marketing SVP Michael Chin took me through a variety of examples yesterday and it’s a very impressive system. Basically you create a design for your video player. Next you select the content for the video player, either a search, premade combination or add in any RSS 2.0 feed. Next you select the type of ads you’d like to display including Google AdSense for Video, ScanScout, adap.tv or 24/7 Real Media. There’s also an option to include your own pre-roll or post-roll ads.

For example, I could take the RSS feed generated by Viddler for CN videos, insert it into the KickApps video player and then ads will be displayed as I select. I’ve been asking Viddler for this type of revenue customization for a long time. The video players that you create can be syndicated to other sites allowing you to generate revenue no matter where the player is viewed.

Chin tells me that KickApps will generate revenue by displaying their own Google AdSense for Video ads randomly. For customers that use the ad buyout option, KickApps won’t display any ads. Last month KickApps partnered with Akamai for video hosting.

Note: KickApps is a sponsor of our sister site HTMLCenter.