YouTube and KickApps

Today YouTube announced that they’re releasing a set of APIs that will enable KickApps publishers to more tightly integrate YouTube with their KickApps community (read about it here and check out our case study on Google Code about this here). With our integration through the APIs, your site’s members will be able to easily grab relevant and compelling video from the YouTube library and feature it on your KickApps site. This ability to leverage the world’s largest user-generated video library will open up a new world of content for your site and will ultimately drive greater levels of engagement. Remember, you’ll have the same moderation and media management capability as with any other content that’s uploaded to your site.

The other thing we’ll be doing with the APIs is to enable direct and easy uploading to your branded YouTube channel (if you have one). This turns YouTube into a distribution channel for your site and will drive YouTubers that are interested in your specific content to your site. Just as we’ve made syndication of your site’s content extremely easy through our ‘one click’ functionality to social sites like MySpace, Facebook, Blackplanet, and others (in addition to the usual embed code), this adds another layer of convenience and ease of use to your distribution strategy.

This new functionality from YouTube is completely inline with our mission of driving down barriers for publishers seeking to create highly engaging social experiences on their sites. We’re extremely excited about being the first white label platform to have been invited by YouTube to join the new program. Look for more news shortly as we complete our testing and go live.

UPDATE: Mashable’s coverage of the YouTube announcement and about KickApps’ integration here.