KickApps, provider of a platform for building white label social networks, will announce today that it has taken two initiatives to make the social networks hosted on its platform more accessible to iPhone users. First, all videos uploaded to KickApps affiliate networks will be viewable on the iPhone despite the device’s lack of Flash support. Secondly, the company is releasing developer tools that will enable affiliates to format their networks for display on the iPhone.
As of August 24th, KickApps has begun automatically converting uploaded videos to both Flash and QuickTime format. Over the next month or so, the company will also be converting its entire back catalogue of Flash videos to QuickTime. When an iPhone user attempts to view a KickApps-hosted video, he or she will be dished up a QuickTime file, whereas desktop clients will continue to load the standard Flash applet.
While technically speaking this probably wasn’t too hard to pull off, it is a nice gesture by KickApps to potential customers who see the things that other Web 2.0 companies – like Facebook, Meebo, and Netvibes – are doing with the iPhone and want in on the action. As the first white label social networking platform to roll out iPhone features, it also earns the company some bragging rights.
Given that Apple will likely add Flash support to the iPhone before too long, their second announcement about formatting KickApps networks for the iPhone will have longer lasting significance. The company will now allow affiliates to create two CSS files for each of their networks’ pages: one to style the page for a regular browser and one for the iPhone. The appropriate stylesheet will be served after a snippet of JavaScript determines the client’s browsing environment.
KickApps has created a test network (pictured above) at KickFlix.net to demonstrate how formatting and video playback works on the iPhone. While not terribly pretty, this demo lists videos and members in a way that fits nicely into the iPhone’s smaller screen. Unfortunately, the company did not also format the actual video and member pages for the iPhone. This oversight makes me wonder how easy it will actually be for affiliates to create CSS files that make all of their networks’ pages fit the iPhone.
While these offerings feel a bit like KickApps rushed to get them out the door, it’s good to see them taking the lead in the highly congested white label social networking space. Let’s hope that other companies like Ning follow suit.
For more coverage of KickApps, see our recent roundup of do-it-yourself, hosted social networking solutions.
Hey Mark — Thanks for your interest in this feature. To follow-up on creating iPhone optimized sites, the instructions on how affiliates can do this is at: http://www.kick...als_iphone.html
I just don’t get why there is such a frenzy to create iPhone websites. It seems so pointless to me that 1000s of sites are creating iPhone websites when there are a less than 1.5 million users in the world on the iPhone and all these are based in the United States – albeit the
10K that travel.
Why wouldnt you focus your attention on the 99.99% of other mobile users and produce apps that work on these phones before even caring about the iPhone.
My 2 Cents….
Check out my interview with Michael Chin (commenter #1 above) – completed last week:
http://www.cent...vp-michael-chin
We love this at BunkerShot.com Golf Online. This was our next question to KickApps.
http://www.Bunk...t.com/community
Thanks……………Rob
I really like the zeal and the application is pretty cool. The only question I ask is similar to 2. Isn’t the power of social networking scale? The iPhone doesn’t look to be positioned to take such a huge market share that it will really benefit from -dozens- of social networks.
As an intellectual exercise, this was probably a great use of resources. As a product with teeth, it might still be a few years before you can really justify a mobile white label social network.
Tcruncher2 -
Two good points.
Designing and displaying web content that is viewable by all visitors to a web site, whether they are visiting via iPhone, laptop, desktop, PDA or are visually impaired, is an important focus for all publishers of web content. Such a focus helps to facilitate the introduction of new technologies and encourages the adoption and evolution of better web standards.
At the end of this tutorial: http://www.kick...als_iphone.html
We mention that designers or community administrators may want to include “handheld” in their media query.
Tcruncher2 -
Two good points.
Designing and displaying web content that is viewable by all visitors to a web site, whether they are visiting via iPhone, laptop, desktop, PDA or are visually impaired, is an important focus for all publishers of web content. Such a focus helps to facilitate the introduction of new technologies and encourages the adoption and evolution of better web standards.
At the end of this tutorial: http://www.kick...als_iphone.html, we mention that designers or community administrators may want to include “handheld” in their media query.
Best,
David Marvasti
KickApps Corp.
The iPhone. Who cares. Seriously! The thing is a bust and anyone building apps for just the iPhone will go bust too.
Just my 2 cents…
I agree with #9… that developing applications specifically for iPhone users could be risky. The beautiful thing about the KickApps platform is that it works perfectly well on PC browsers as well.
tx
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So many people bitching about the iPhone….yes they should target OTHER mobile users as well, but the idea is to get EVERYONE into it, whether you have a Nokia, LG, Samsung, or yes, even an iPhone.
Kickapps can easily do it for other handhelds as well and I think they are probably doing that with the $11MM they got recently as we speak.
Making it available for the iPhone first gets them the best bang for the buck when it comes to creating the buzz and getting the word out. It is a nice marketing move.
Excelente !!! GOOD JOB !!!
RIO DE JANEIRO – BRAZIL
Smart move KickApps. If you want to be successful ,then you have to go where the buzz is. If you want to stay in the games, then you must merger with emerging technology.
I think people make websites available for iphone because it cost almost nothing to do (look how fast big websites like facebook released their iphone version) and it’s hype (especially if you want a post on techcrunch
dailymotion also have an iphone version with viewable videos. You can find it at this url: http://iphone.dailymotion.com/
Why is it that people are so willing to listen to tripe, spread from the likes of Mossberg, Scoble etc.? “Apple will likely add Flash support”, because Mossberg says so?
You call yourself a journalist? Do some research.