Looking to install free message boards and other free social media functionality such as widgets, blogs, or YouTube style user generated photo / video content on your website? Then KickApps could be the ideal solution.
BTW - if you’ve installed KickApps, please think about leaving us a quick comment below to let us know your experience here.
KickApps looks like a pretty powerful white label solution that allows you to install and manage social media functionality on your website, without paying a cent for costly technical development work. Think Facebook, Myspace and YouTube style functionality, on your site, in your branding, for free.
Running on the fast-growing software as a service (SaaS) business model, KickApps allows you to install free message boards, free widgets, blogs, free video upload tools, and a whole host of community / member building and interaction tools with no entry costs.
Instead, you either agree to let them serve advertising on your site as part of a joint revenue share deal, or ‘buy out’ their share of potential ad revenue by paying based on how much you use their service (from $100 / month up, negotiable)
This is a huge win for smaller publishers that can’t afford the tech development costs associated with building this kind of functionality from scratch. And probably just as useful for larger organizations who don’t have the budget or internal will-power to get ’scary’ new tech work done.
KickApps offer different build options for web developers based on technical ability from a straight-up WYSIWYG for beginners, to custom look and feel via HTML and CSS / Javascript uploads, up to technical integration into your existing CMS, and custom development via API’s.
All of this masked under your own domain name, hosted by KickApps (so no need to worry about server requirements, data costs, or installing updates).
In summary, KickApps seems pretty powerful and throws up a whole host of interesting ideas and questions, particularly about the advertising / revenue model that I’ll probably write about another day.
Or if you are interested in the analytics side of things you can see more information about some free visual web analytics tools here.
Links:
What is KickApps - http://www.kickapps.com
Customization - http://www.kickapps.com/customization
Technology - http://www.kickapps.com/technology
Product Features - http://www.kickapps.com/features
KickApps Video Overview:
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If you have experience of installing and / or managing KickApps please let us know your thoughts with a comment below.
Personally, I don’t do tech work, but I work daily with a team of web developers that would love to hear what people out there think.
Thanks for your great and thorough write up. Another resource to check out is KickDeveloper.com, it’s KickApps’ community resource for developers using our software platform.
Just one point of clarification however, KickApps is an independent company and we are not owned by AOL.
Thanks again for your interest and please do get in touch if you need anything or have any questions.
- Michael Chin
SVP, Marketing
KickApps
Thanks for the clarification Michael. Have removed the reference to AOL, as I think it’s important to be accurate about those kind of things.
Lots of our clients (Australian large and small, see http://www.dtdigital.com.au if you are interested) are looking to install this kind of functionality, so I’ll definitely be showing our tech team around the developers section.
Jon
Thanks, Jon. Again, you’ve really captured the value proposition extremely well–much appreciated. Please let me know if you’d like to get a deeper drill down on KickApps. I’d love to connect you to our partner relations group as we regularly get inquiries from Australian web publishers.
Best,
- Michael
Hi Michael
I’d be happy to speak to someone in your partner relations group to explore the options there, is there a contact you can send me? Perhaps we can connect via LinkedIn and you can send me their details.
Thanks,
Jon
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jongarner