Kickapps Review

One of the leading social networking platforms is known as KickApps.  KickApps is a technologically advanced and very powerful social networking platform that runs on a proprietary Java-based platform, using Hibernate and the Spring framework with widgets that make use of a variety of web technologies including Flash, XML, and RSS.

While other social networking sites offer most of the basic features that users of social networks expect to see - KickApps typically takes this a step further by providing some of the most advanced web technology available to users. 

KickApps provides webmasters working on a private social networking site or a business site with a wide array of applications that integrate well with any website.  All features of KickApps provide a variety of choices to customize those features to integrate as seamlessly as possible with your website, and to offer as much functionality to your users as possible.

KickApps is unique in that instead of downloading and installing the software on your own web server, KickApps is a "Software-as-a-Service (Saas) Platform", which means that the content hosting, applications and media are all managed by KickApps.  This means that you never have to download the software to your own server, deal with scripting or manage the database.

KickApps Social Networking

At first I thought that a social networking platform would be horribly difficult to manage or control if it is being hosted on a remote server somewhere else other than on the server where my own website is hosted.  It turns out that with KickApps, this isn't the case.

When you first sign up with KickApps, you immediately work on configuring and building your KickApps-based community.  The website provides a "Style and Theme Builder" that allows you to make the community match your own website.  Advanced users also have the option to customize CSS, Javascript, or even KickApps open APIs to fine-tune the look of the site. 

The one drawback to hosting the community on KickApps servers is that the URL of the community is not the same as your website.  You need to enable DNS masking in your configuration so that your KickApps site does point to your URL, however anyone who has ever used DNS masking knows that it doesn't provide website visitors with the same experience as when the URL is shown and changes from page to page - DNS masking appears slightly "odd" to users who recognize that the authentic URL is being masked.

Requirements

Since the social networking site is hosted on KickApps servers, there are no real requirements to integrate the KickApps site with your own website and registered URL.  Users who plan to register a domain that they would like to point to their KickApps social networking site should research and understand how DNS masking works, since this is the only way that your registered URL will appear to point to your KickApps social networking site.

Major Features

The power of KickApps is that it is one of the most comprehensive and functional social networking platforms available.  There are several major features that give KickApps a competitive advantage.

Video Content

Kickapps provides all of the usual features that are available on most standard social networking websites including guest books, profiles, messaging, and message boards.  However one of the features that set KickApps above others is the extensive videos option that doesn't only provide uploaded video as a single download - but it also automatically generates several screenshots from the video so that users can see a better overview of what is contained in the video.

Widgets

The second unique feature KickApps offers users are Viral Widgets.  KickApps provides an extensive library of embedded widgets that members can use to syndicate your community content at other websites across the internet.  Widgets can be spread to other websites by your users through either copying embedded code, or with a simple mouse click.

Open API / Developer Kit

One of the most powerful characteristics of KickApps are the customization features that are available to developers.  The most powerful of these are the open API and developer kit.  A KickApps social networking site is highly customizable by implementing KickApps APIs onto your personal website.  These API's allow advanced users the ability to access KickApps' architecture directly.

Some significant additional features that have recently been added to KickApps recently with version 3.0 includes advanced network activity reporting, new tools for non-technical folks to create attractive sites through a "Site Styler" application, and the ability to view video uploaded to KickApps on the Apple Inc. iPhone.

KickApps is constantly expanding - in 2007, KickApps integrated the social networking platform with the popular open-source content management system (CMS) known as Joomla!.  This means that any website developer already utilizing Joomla are now able to easily integrate KickApps based communities into their existing websites.  KickApps provides an integration plug-in for Joomla users at: http://www.kickdeveloper.com/tutorials_joo mla.html.

Performance

Setting up an account on KickApps was wonderfully painless.  After designing and configuring the social networking site, integrating it with our personal website was just as easy.  Performing a standard five-user test, the software ran flawlessly and very fast.  Response time for page loads and utilizing the various features were smooth and remarkably quick considering the growing user base of this service.  There were no bugs that we could determine from our brief test, and the DNS masking worked as well as could be expected.

Setting up a KickApps account is technically free - and the free accounts are not limited in terms of functionality.  However KickApps is paid through taking a part of the advertising for every social networking site that is built.  Users can place their own ads on the social networking sites, but pages on free accounts must include a KickApps ad.  The paid registration is actually based on a scale of success.  KickApps uses a CPM rate structure, which means that highly active sites pay a higher rate.  While this isn't great for successful social networking sites, it is wonderful news for those sites that have yet to receive very much traffic.

Overview

KickApps is one of the largest and most popular social networking platforms available on the market at the moment.  Major corporations use KickApps including:

•-          Kraft Foods, Inc.

•-          The Procter & Gamble Co.

•-          Home Box Office Inc.

•-          Scripps Network Interactive

•-          Arena Football League LLC

•-          ABC Family

•-          CW Television

•-          Guinness World Records

•-          VIBE Magazine

•-          HBO

•-          Cinemax

•-          Cox Television

•-          The Phoenix Suns

•-          The New York Knicks

•-          The New York Rangers

Those are only a few of the major websites that utilize the KickApps platform.  The success of this social networking platform comes mostly from the business model as well as the modular design of the platform that allows developers to quickly utilize KickApps social networking functionality on their own websites.