KickApps is implementing a lot of new features and capabilities with its newest release, version 3.0, which debuts today. For a complete list of the improvements, you can check out the company’s official release (see the summary in the second half).
The upgrades are largely divided between those that appeal to advanced publishers and those that appeal to novice consumers. The API Developer Kit, which we covered just a little while ago but is still considered as part of this release, certainly appeals to the technically advanced by allowing them to access KickApps’ architecture directly. More sophisticated network activity reporting will also appeal to advanced users who need to track the “performance” of their online communities.
In the other camp, we have new tools that help non-technical people build social networks with KickApps. As the press release puts it, “anyone can launch a full-featured social media community in minutes.” This was always true with KickApps, strictly speaking, but until now the company has never made it easy for people lacking HTML and CSS skills to make attractive, non-standard sites.
Now the platform provides not only a selection of site themes but also a WYSIWYG Site Styler that lays on top of your site and lets you point and click your way to a new look. The Affiliate Center (KickApps’s term for a site’s control panel) has also been redesigned to hold the hands of novice users a bit more. If you haven’t created a video, added a forum, or loaded a profile picture, it will suggest you take these steps to foster your community. A new Flash-based widget studio, announced in beta today but not yet available publicly, will also make the creation of advanced widgets more feasible for regular consumers.
KickApps has always differentiated itself from competitor Ning by focusing on content publishers and media companies. While Ning appeals to individuals who want to easily set up social networks for their various interests, KickApps appeals more to organizations who are looking for ways to publish and market their content online through social media. KickApps insists that its new tools are targeted at its own long tail, not Ning’s; that is to say, intended for smaller yet still serious content publishers. However, the more accessible KickApps makes its product – and this release is predominantly about making it more accessible – the more it will overlap with Ning and compete directly with that company.
ning has no defense (other that $50M I suppose) against this type of stuff, having oodles of mini social networks gives them no real lock in with users, unlike facebook etc…
of course, lock in dissappears with the data portability group hug
the real loser in these social network app wars will be Movabletype and Wordpress.
Does KA or Ning support the creation of fee-based niche social networks? If I want to monetize my social network with membership fees (not ads), how can I do that?
You may want to check out http://www.rsitez.com and look at their membership dues integration with PayPal.
Interesting enough I met with KickApps a few months ago and they are working on some very interesting things. But my take away from the meeting was that the implementation process and the overall pricing model for their social networking application was a lot more involved and seemed contrary to what they were presenting to us. Afterwards , I signed-up at Ning (a very easy process), but it wasn’t in line with my interest to make money from a social networking solution as it seemed I was just paying Ning for the opportunity to place my own ad code. I wanted to be able to benefit from some up-sell opportunities and to interconnect all of my sub-sites and other likeminded sites together as a mega network. These two things I could not do with Ning. I decided to participate in a private beta trial of another startup from NYC called in2apps. They were able to meet most of the requirements I was looking for. They’re also targeting those in the online publisher space who are slightly more technical than Ning’s direct users which are primarily Facebook and Myspace users looking for more functionality then just managing their profiles. in2apps has provided me with the ability to add social networking features directly on my own website. They gave me a single line of JavaScript code and after I placed it within my html page (a thin client app loading directly into a tag) I was presented with a fully functional social networking application and there was even several member profiles pre-populated into the social network. This seems to be a feature – you can be part of the general in2apps network. The best thing about this whole process is that I got to have an early look at their application and I get to provide feedback to help influence the current and future applications being developed by in2apps. I also read that they are planning to release several other proof of concept applications for free to anyone with a website that would like to provide services like social networking, and classified listing to their end users.
-John
John (nice name!)- That’s really interesting, what’s the name of your site that you added this “single line of JS code” to? I’m looking for something similar and I would love to see an example.
@Erik Dungan #3
I know that Ning does, you as a network owner have the option to approve new memberships and manage the existing ones, if you pay for the “run your own ads” premium service you can get rid of the existing ads and use your own monetization model, if you need more control you can request the full php code of the application as well and integrate your billing system so you don’t have to manually approve/ban the members based on your rules. I don’t know about Kickaps.
Ho freaken hum. What the hell are they really doing differently than anyone? Give me a break
had been looking forward to this release. Had been using Ning for a while now. Its good for a basic network but does not have much flexibility with site customization.
RK
http://www.rent...drealestate.com
Competition is good. It is great to see all these great platforms out there.
I’m sure we’ll start seeing some die off and we’ll see consolidation soon.
In the mean time it is great to see how these networks can one up each other and develop some really cool stuff.
I looked very hard at both Ning and KickApps before launching the social community on my site. Like is so often the case, both do different things well. When it came right down to it, the ability to completely customize the interface was my deciding factor.
This is a kickapps community http://workbenc...pemarketing.com but you wouldn’t know it.
3.0 is a nice upgrade as KA has some catching up to do in the social aspects of the offering.
@#10 Well, the fact that your _home page url_ contains this: ‘kickapps/service/displayHomePageExperience.kickAction’ kind of gives it away.
@ #10 & #11
why is it a positive–or negative–to have ‘kickapps/service/displayHomePageExperience.kick Action” in your url
@ #3
did you ever find out if KA allows membership fees?
Thanks.
@John Jantsch
It looks like Kickapps to me ,same structure.Standard Kickapps widget player!
If you need some one to build your Kick community so you wouldn’t know it.
contact me at info@blinkweb.nl