Alex on Vator.Tv

About a month ago, Alex posted here mentioning Bambi Francisco’s startup Vator.TV. Still officially in stealth mode (but it should be launching any day now), Vator provides a place for CEOs to deliver their company’s 2-minute ‘elevator pitch.’ Alex did a good one for KickApps–worth a view below, or you can sneak a view of our Vator page here.

Facebook paves the way for interconnected social networks

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Facebook is planning to allow members to post Widgets on their pages. This is a powerful step towards linking large online social networks with niche contextual communities and services.

Vauhini Vara nicely sums up the importance of this decision:

This move is significant because it could turn Facebook into a central hub for Web users […] rather than using Facebook only to keep in touch with friends and going elsewhere for other content, users could now gain access to that content inside Facebook. That could keep people on Facebook for longer periods of time, which would also appeal to advertisers.

Facebook becomes center of the universe?

Will Facebook replace the desktop? Perhaps not for software-intensive worker bees, but it sounds like a real possibility for social media users. What’s more interesting is how KickApps sites will flourish in this environment. Read the rest…

Help Make KickApps Even Better

We’ve been working around the clock since Thursday night to provide you with a superior KickApps experience. With KickApps version 2.1, you’ll find that your community pages look better and are more customizable, your members get significantly improved page and widget load times, and we’ve made a series of back-end enhancements to boost the platform’s performance and reliability. Specifically, we’ve upgraded our network operations to include more high-performance application servers and additional levels of redundancy at our data backup facility.

As our network of publishers continues to grow rapidly, we want to assure you we are committed to service excellence and dedicated to delighting you. Your support, feedback, and collaboration are an essential part of this process, and we need your input to succeed.

If you have any comments or questions about the new release, feel free to write us directly at info@kickapps.com.

Thank you again for choosing KickApps,

Alex

Updated notes for custom CSS

One of the most dramatic changes in today’s release was a complete reworking of the KickApps platform’s member-facing HTML and CSS. For existing affiliates who customized their CSS for greater branding, we posted a transition preparation guide. Now that the release is live, Josh has posted a simplified page on KickWebmaster for new webmasters planning to customize their CSS.

Read the new CSS guide here.

Looking for examples of the power and flexibility of CSS customization? Check out some of our existing affiliate sites like the BET Awards ‘07, Arena Football League’s ‘MyAFL’, or even the rockin House of Hair.

Have questions about the new CSS or want to meet other webmasters who have customized their site styles? Check out the KickWebmaster message boards and join the conversation.

KickApps Version 2.1 Release Notes

On the morning of Friday, May 18, we’re launching a new release of the KickApps platform designed to make your community easier to manage and to make your members’ experiences more fun. Here’s what we’ve done:

1. Most of your member-facing pages have been completely redesigned so they look better, are easier to customize, and are organized more intuitively. We reworked these pages down to their underlying HTML and CSS, stripping out their old, table-based structure.

If you’ve added custom CSS styles to your KickApps-powered pages, consult the CSS transition guide to understand the steps you’ll need to take before the update goes live on the 18th. If you’ve already made these changes using the Advanced version of the guide, please re-read it for notes concerning a recent bug fix.

2. You’ll also notice improved page usability and navigation.
   • In the “My Home” section (formerly known as “Edit My Profile”), we’ve switched to a horizontal navigation scheme, added icons to important links, and made the interfaces more consistent from page to page.
   • We’ve placed new “Add media” links in every media category, so members are always one click away from uploading a new video.
   • We’ve moved the old login mini-form out of the navigation bar and given it room to breathe and be seen in a popup div, similar to the “Flag as inappropriate” functionality.
   • If you’ve activated the KickApps-powered home page, a consistent navigation design appears on every other page in your community.

3. We’ve also updated your message boards so users can share text and videos with ease. At the risk of losing our Web 2.0 membership card, we’ve foregone AJAX and moved discussions into their own pages. We’ve also tightened up the overall page layouts so your members can access more information at a glance.

4. We’ve improved your site’s performance through a series of back-end changes including a new pagination model that returns results significantly quicker than before.

5. In response to your feedback, we’ve simplified your pages’ banner ads by removing the left Skyscraper ad slots on all pages and adding slots on the right side for IAB standard Skyscraper ads. We’ve also changed the default ad controls: new affiliates get the Right Skyscraper on every page, and we’ve added a new IAB Medium Rectangle to the Play page. As always, if you want control of the ads on your KickApps community, contact us at info@kickapps.com

In addition, we’ve also debugged and updated plenty of smaller issues. See anything else you like? Have questions, complaints, or requests for our upcoming releases? We’re looking forward to reading them on the KickWebmaster message board!

Thanks for choosing KickApps to run your community,

The KickApps Team