In 2000, two students at the University of Antwerp, Dries Buytaert and Hans Snijder, developed a website that would allow their friends to share notes, news and updates with each other. Upon graduation, Buytaert searched for a domain name to house the software he’d built. While registering dorp.org (Dorp is the Dutch word for “village”, which was considered a fitting name for the small community”) he made a typo and instead registered drop.org.
In 2001, Buytaert released the software under the name Drupal, derived from the English pronunciation of the Dutch world “druppel,” which means drop. From these humble beginnings, Drupal has become one of the world’s leading open source content management systems used by millions of developers around the world.
Today we’re very excited to announce our integration with Drupal to enable Single Sign-On between Drupal and KickApps powered sites. Similar to the announcements we made earlier this Fall about our integration with Joomla! and WordPress, the Drupal module makes it easier than ever for Drupal developers to add social media communities to their websites.
Why did we do these three integrations? Simply put, we’re committed to building the most innovative white label social media platform for publishers and developers. This includes everything from cool features and functionality to enhance your members’ social media experiences to further eliminating the barriers for our clients to tap into the power of KickApps and build successful online communities.
Do you remember flipping through the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records in your school’s library, wondering who’s the world’s tallest man, furthest eyeball popper, or most pierced woman. The Guinness World Records brand has been one of the most recognized and valued since the first book was published in the mid-50s and we’re very excited that they chose KickApps to power their community site.
GWR receives thousands of videos each year from would-be record breakers with hopes for worldwide glory for feats that at times astound the mind. Social media is the perfect fit for a brand like GWR. Enthusiasts and passers by find themselves drawn in by curiosity and fascination. The content is also very shareable, who doesn’t want all their friends to see this:
or this:
and this one:
As content goes, the viral nature and community aspects are obvious. As a publisher, GWR has built its reputation as the authority for records. As a destination, it’s the perfect place for those who aspire for global notoriety and also those seeking some truly entertaining short form video. With plans just to check out the site, I ended up spending over 30 minutes on it this morning! Aside from the annual publication, the site now creates multiple opportunities for GWR to engage their audience through side contests throughout the year.
So, the next time you need a short break from whatever you’re doing, check out www.guinnessworldrecords.com, or submit a video of your latest record attempt.
Last month we were psyched to announce Single Sign-On (SSO) support between KickApps and Joomla!, the popular open source content management system.
We’ve now announced similar functionality for Wordpress—one of the world’s most widely used and respected blogging platforms. With a simple, free plugin, it’s easier than ever for anyone with a Wordpress-powered site to integrate KickApps’ advanced social media features. You can find it here along with a handy tutorial to get you on your way.
With the plugin, as members sign into your Wordpress site, they’ll be auto-registered into your KickApps-powered community. That means they’ll automatically get a community profile based on their registered name and email, so they can start uploading and sharing media immediately, and you don’t have to worry about an initial data import.
This is all part of our continued efforts to make it easy for you to get your site social.
Together with VIBE and MySpace we made an announcement today about VIBE Verses 3, the rap battle to end all rap battles. For those of you who have been following the VIBE Verses franchise, you’ll be very familiar with the contest to find the ‘next great rapper.’ What’s new and exciting with 3 is that the winner will be picked by Wyclef Jean to open for him during his MySpace Release Party on December 4th in LA (the finalists will be selected by the VIBE Verses community).
What’s really interesting about all this is that this is the first major collaboration between a MEGA community, like MySpace, and a niche community, in this case the leading hip hop and urban lifestyle brand. There’s been a lot of buzz about OpenSocial lately (something we think is great for the industry) and it’s easy to miss the fact that from a business perspective, tremendous opportunities exist when the worlds of mega and niche start to intermingle.
A big part of making an online community successful are the non-technical building blocks (we’ll take care of the technical for you :-)), such as marketing/promotion and programming/editorial. You’ve got to give people a reason to come to the site and participate in the community and you’ve got to find and tell people about what’s going on in the community. VIBE and MySpace are a perfect example of two leaders coming together to make all of this happen.
The VIBE Verses community is a very engaged and active niche community. They gather around the contest (a great piece of programming). Its success is measured not just by traffic but by the levels of engagement, i.e. the richness of the profiles people have created, and the comments people leave after watching a video, voting, etc.
MySpace, the world’s largest social network, with over 72 million unique visitors in October 2007 according to comScore, acts as an audience aggregator. The Hip Hop channel on MySpace is one of the largest on its site. For MySpace to be associated with VIBE brings it a lot of ‘cred’ (so to speak) in this space.
Together, you have the makings of a ton of opportunities for both in terms of advertising and sponsorship revenue online but also offline events (i.e. concerts, parties, etc.), a big part of a publisher’s business model (VIBE puts on over 300 events around the country each year).
I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to see more ‘intermingling,’ whether it’s Facebook apps, OpenSocial or relationships like this. Are you ready for it? If so, head over to VIBE Verses and upload your video.
It is with great sadness today that we announce a deep loss to the KickApps community.
Graham Peachey, our European business development manager, was a victim of a tragic accident while cycling on Monday morning near his home in Barton Mills, UK. Graham was an accomplished professional, avid cyclist, windsurfer and outdoorsman. Of the many things he loved about life, his wife, two boys, family, and friends around the world, were on the top of the list. Genuine, kind, passionate, and brilliant are words that his co-workers have used to describe him over the months that we worked together. His passing is a tremendous loss to all who knew him.
Graham’s favorite communities he helped launch were Cycling TV and LuffTube.
Here’s a photo of Graham on the left:
This was his favorite video clip which he uploaded, sent around the office and continually raved about how funny he found it:
Graham, you’re missed by all of us…
UPDATE: A note from Cycling TV’s Managing Director, Simon.
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