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Video Sharing
From KickApps Documentation
Overview
The KIT Cloud Social Video Sharing application lets you and your site’s members add videos to your site through their web browser. The application automatically handles transcoding, hosting and delivery of every video, as long as the original video file meets the specifications described below.
Site members can add as many videos as they wish, and you have the ability to review, approve and reject all user-submitted videos before (or after) they appear on your site.
Videos can be organized by categories or tags, and each video’s title and description are indexed by your site’s global search engine (which makes all of your site’s content findable by keyword).
Each video “play page” has a unique URL (“permalink”), retains your site’s global styling and navigation (including your header, main navigation, background and footer), and is wired up for social interaction via comments and ratings, “favoriting,” sharing with friends, etc.
Additionally, each video can be virally syndicated to Facebook, MySpace or any blog or web site that accepts embed code.
WATCH VIDEO: Intro to Photo and Video Sharing with KIT Cloud Social
Enabling and Disabling the Video Sharing Application
The KIT Cloud Social Video Sharing application can be enabled or disabled in Affiliate Center on the Configure > Settings > Add/Remove Apps page. (You can get to the Affiliate Center by clicking the “manage your site” link near the top of all your site’s pages.) When you enable this application, your site’s members will be able to upload and edit their own videos, and view and interact videos added by other members.
Note: If you disable this application after videos have been submitted to your site, all of those videos will become unavailable on your site and people who try to view them will see a message that the video has been removed. Re-enabling the Video Sharing application will make those videos viewable again.
Configuring the Video Sharing Application
When members add videos to your site you can automatically approve the content or you can specify that the content must be manually approved by a site administrator or editor before it goes live on your site.
You can configure this setting in the Affiliate Center on the Manage > Media page. If auto-approvals are not enabled for the video sharing application, each new video will immediately be placed in your site’s Pending Queue, where it must be manually approved by a site administrator. Click here for more information on managing your site’s media in the Affiliate Center. (Note: you can designate specific members of your site as “trusted contributors,” which means that even if you have auto-approvals turned off, any videos added or edited by these members will be automatically approved.) Click here for more information on managing your site’s members in the Affiliate Center
Regardless of which auto-approval setting you choose, a “flag as inappropriate” option appears on every video play page, which allows site visitors to notify administrators if they see a video that should be reviewed or removed from the site. When this link is clicked, a window appears where you can enter details about why you think the video is inappropriate. When this form is submitted, the site Webmaster receives an email notification containing a link to the video in question and the explanation from the person who flagged it. By setting your site’s “flag threshold,” you can automatically pull a video down off the site (and into your site’s Pending Queue) after it has been flagged a certain number of times.
When the video sharing application is enabled, you can specify a default icon to represent videos throughout your site (on search results pages, for instance). This icon is used in situations where a custom icon is not available (like, while the video is processing) or has not been specified by the member while uploading the video. You set the default icon for videos in the Affiliate Center on the Configure > Settings > Default Icons page.
On the Configure > Settings > Site Settings page in the Affiliate Center can configure your site to allow your members to submit “private media” to your site.
When this option is selected the video upload page is modified to include an option for the contributor to specify that “only their friends” can see the video. If this option is selected during the upload process (see below), a link to the “private” video will only be visible on the contributor’s profile page, and only their friends inside your site will be able to see it. (Note: Private videos do not show up in your site’s search results or RSS feeds – they are essentially “invisible” to everyone in the world except the contributor, the contributor’s friends and the site administrators. If an unauthorized user tries to view a private video they will see a message indicating that the video is only visible to friends of the contributor.) The visibility of a video can easily be toggled from public to private at any time, as described below in the “Editing Videos” section of this document.
As the site administrator, you can choose to include a few other optional meta data fields on your video upload page. These include geo-location fields (country, city, state, zip), a “custom thumbnail” field and an “email your friends” field. If the “custom thumbnail” field is left blank, the Video Sharing application will automatically generate a thumbnail image to represent the video in your site. You can enable these fields individually in the Affiliate Center on the Configure > Settings > Site Settings page.
The video sharing application has a few default text strings that you can modify in the Affiliate Center in the Configure > Language section. The “Language Editor” allows you to not only localize the Video Sharing application to another language (Italian, French, Spanish, etc.), but it also allows you to re-position the Video Sharing application as any type of user submitted video application (like a video contest, for instance). Click on the edit button after you activate your particular language to access the individual labels associated with the Video Sharing application.
Adding Videos
You and your site’s members can add videos by clicking the “Add a Video” links which appear in a few places on your site, including the “Get Active” section of each member’s myHome page, the sub-nav section of the main Videos page and in the “interaction module” beneath each video on your site. Clicking any of these links will bring the user to the video upload page.
Videos can either be uploaded from your hard drive, or they can be recorded “live” via the recording option on the video upload page.
Live video recordings have a 10-minute time limit, and the contributor must have a webcam and high-speed internet access in order to maintain a connection with the video recorder hosted on our servers. (Note: the Flash Player 9.0 or newer is required in order to use the live video recorder.)
Up to five videos can be uploaded at once by clicking “Add multiple videos” link on the upload page. Uploaded videos must be in .flv, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .mov, .3gp, .mpg, .mpeg, or .mp4 format and there is a 100 MB limit, per video.
Optionally, members can fill out the title, description, tags and category fields on the video upload page in order to make the videos more easily findable on your site. (Note: if the “title” field is left blank, it will automatically be populated with the filename of the original video that was uploaded.)
If you chose to include additional meta data fields on the upload page for the Video Sharing application (see, “Configuring the Video Sharing Application,” above), those optional fields also appear in this section of the upload page.
If you have the “media privacy” feature enabled for your site, the video upload page contains an option for the contributor to specify that “only their friends” can see the video once it’s live on your site.
If the KIT Cloud Social Sets application is enabled for your site, the video upload page also contains a few additional optional fields where the contributor can add the video(s) to sets they have already created, or they can create a new set. If the new video is being added to an existing set, the video will be the last item in the set. If the new video is being added to a new set, the video will be the first item in the new set. Click here for more information on the Sets application
If the KIT Cloud Social Groups application is enabled for your site, members will see a list of groups that they belong to on the video upload page (if they belong to any). The video that gets uploaded will be added to all of the groups that the member checks (if any). Click here for more information on the Groups application
Editing Videos
Videos can be edited by the site administrators, as well as the member who added the video. If you are the member who posted the video, clicking the “Edit Video” link in the area beneath the video player will take you to the “Edit Video” page where the title, description and other meta data associated with the video can be modified. If you are a site administrator, clicking the “Edit Video” link will take you to the Affiliate Center, where all of the video’s meta data can be edited, or the video can be deleted or rejected (which puts the video into your site’s “Pending Queue.”
Finding Videos
Each video that gets added to your site is immediately indexed by your site-wide search engine and is made available on the site within a few minutes after it is created. When you enable the video sharing application for your KIT Cloud Social-powered site, a “Videos” tab is added to your site’s global navigation strip. Clicking the “Videos” tab will display the most recent videos that have been added to your site, with options to sort the list by most views, most comments, most favorites, etc. In addition to the “Videos” tab in your site’s global navigation strip, a “Video” checkbox is added to the Advanced Search form on your site, so that users can perform keyword searches against only your site’s videos. Click here for more information on the Search application
Viewing and Interacting With Videos
Each video in your site has a dedicated page at a URL that is automatically created by the KIT Cloud Social system, based on the title of the video. The page which hosts each video contains the title of the video, the body of the video, as well as information about who added it, and when it was added. Beneath the body of the video is an interaction module where other members can rate the video, leave comments, add it to their favorites, add it to a set, share it with friends, tag it, etc. To the right of the body of the video, beneath the information about the member who added it is a list of related videos. This list is comprised of other recent videos that have similar tags, titles and authors. In addition to viewing and interacting with your site’s videos while on your site’s “play pages,” viewers can “snag” your video players and embed them on Facebook, MySpace or any blog or website that accepts embed code. This is a great way of spreading your message through the social web and driving traffic back to your site. Click here for more information about editing the video players on your site.
The KIT Cloud Social Sets application allows your site’s members to create “sets” or collections of related media assets that belong to your site. If you have enabled the Sets application for your site, the video play page might contain a “set navigator” module beneath the video player, which allows you to quickly see which other items are in the set, and navigate through a set of related items quickly. This module will only be present if the video currently being viewed belongs to a set. In addition, below each video player is a link which allows any member to add the current video to any of their sets, provided the video contributor selected the option to allow other members to do this. Click here for more information on the Sets application
As mentioned above (see, ‘Configuring the Video Sharing Application) , there is a “flag as inappropriate” option on every video play page, which allows site visitors to notify administrators if they see a video that should be reviewed or removed from the site. When this link is clicked, a window appears where you can enter details about why you think the video is inappropriate. When this form is submitted, the site Webmaster receives an email notification containing a link to the video in question and the explanation from the person who flagged it.
Managing Videos as a Site Member
Your site’s members can see all of their videos in one place by clicking the “Videos” tab, and then the “My Videos” tab in your site’s global navigation strip. From this page, members can view, edit or delete any of their previous video uploads.
Managing Videos as the Site Administrator
As a site administrator (Webmaster, Admin or Editor), you can view and manage all of your site’s videos in the Affiliate Center in the Manage > Media section. The advanced search form allows you to look for videos by specific members, within specific categories, posted between specific dates, among other filtering criteria.
Clicking the “details” link next to any video will allow you to view and edit the video, including the comments, tags, ratings and other meta data fields. Changes that you make here are permanent.
Syndicating Videos
Your site’s videos can be syndicated in the Affiliate Center’s App Studio > Feed Builder section. To create an RSS feed of your site’s videos, click the “create” button on the Feed Builder main page, then select “videos” as your “Media Type.” From there you can sort and filter the results using the standard sorting and filtering options available in the Feed Builder tool, to produce a feed containing just the items matching your criteria. (For instance you could create a feed of videos submitted by a certain member, or group of members, sorted by most recent, or most viewed, or most comments, etc). Note: you don’t have to use the Feed Builder tool to create RSS feeds containing your sites videos. Advanced users can also manually construct an RSS feed URL containing the “mediaType=videos” parameter in our RSS Feed API. Click here for more information on the RSS Feed API
In addition to syndicating all of your site’s video posts via RSS Feeds, you can also syndicate the videos of any individual member by clicking on the RSS icon located at the bottom right of any video play page.
Reporting on Videos
Usage of the video sharing application is tracked along with the rest of your site’s content in the Reporting section of the Affiliate Center. You can see how many videos were added, and how many times your site’s videos were viewed in aggregate for any date range. Click here for more information on KIT Cloud Social Reporting.
Videos on Profile Pages
There is a section on each member’s profile page where hyperlinked titles of their most recent videos are displayed. When members add videos to your site, this section of their profile page is automatically updated with links to the recent videos.
There is also a section on each member’s profile page where links to their favorite videos are listed. When a member of your site adds a particular video post their “Favorites,” this section of their profile page is automatically updated with a link to the video. Click here for more information on the Social Networking application
Videos on Your Site’s Homepage
You can configure your site to include a pre-configured “community home page” which contains a bunch of modules that feature the most recent content that members have contributed to your site. When a new video is added to your site, the “Most Recent Video” module is automatically updated with a link to the video. In addition, at the top right of your pre-configured “community home page” is a video player featuring the video that was most recently uploaded to your site. You can edit this video player in the App Studio by changing the way it looks, the way it behaves and the content that it plays. Click here for more information on the KIT Cloud Social App Studio. (Click here to learn more about configuring your site to include a pre-configured “community home page.”)
Videos in Your Site’s Activity Feeds
Your KIT Cloud Social-powered site comes with a number of “activity feeds” that are constantly updated as members interact with each other and with the content of your site.
- There is a “community activity feed” on your site’s login page which contains a running feed of all member activity across your site.
- There is a “member activity feed” on the profile page for each of your site’s members which contains a running feed of each particular member’s activities.
- There is a “my friends and my news” feed on your members’ myHome page which contains a feed of their friends’ activities and the also the activities of the people they are following.
- Lastly, there is a “group activity feed” on each group page which contains a feed of activities that have happened inside that particular group.
Each time a new video is added, edited or interacted with (rated, commented on, added to someone’s favorites, etc), the appropriate activity feeds are automatically updated with a link to the member who performed the action, as well as a link to the video that was acted upon. Click here for more information on the RSS Feed API
Below is an illustration of a member activity feed on someone’s profile page:
Videos and Points
The KIT Cloud Social Points & Levels application allows you to automatically award points to your site’s members when they perform certain activities on your site. If you have enabled the Points & Levels application for your site, you can configure the application to award points when your members add videos, and when their videos are interacted with. Click here for more information on the Points and Levels application
Videos and Groups
The KIT Cloud Social Groups application allows you to create “micro-communities” within your site that members can join to share and interact with others in a more granular context than your entire site. If you have enabled the Groups application for your site, each group has a “group page” with a video player at the top right and a section featuring the most recent videos that have been added to the group. You can edit the video player in the App Studio by changing the way it looks, the way it behaves and the content that it plays. Click here for more information on the KIT Cloud Social App Studio. Click here for more information on the Groups application
Advertising on Videos
There are a few different types of pages on your site associated with the KIT Cloud Social video application. Clicking the “Videos” tab in your site’s global navigation strip reveals a “list page” containing your site’s most recent videos. From here, you can click on an individual video, which is rendered on a “play page.” If you click to edit or add a new video, you are taken to a “profile management” page.
Each of the three types of pages mentioned above have “ad slots” in them that you can populate with whichever content you want. You can configure these ad slots in the Affiliate Center on the Configure > Advertising page. Click here to learn more about configuring the ad slots on your site.
In addition to putting display ads on the pages where your video players are embedded, you can also put in-stream ads right inside your video players. You can manually insert pre and post-roll videos, you can integrate translucent overlays from ad networks like Google AdSense for Video, RealMedia 24/7 and others. We also have built-in support for ad servers like DoubleClick. Click here to learn more about your options for in-stream advertising in your KIT Cloud Social video players.
System-Generated Emails
The Video Sharing application sends email notifications to site administrators and members when certain events occur. The contents of these notifications can be modified by editing your site’s Language settings, as described above (see, “Configuring the Audio Sharing Application”). Below is a list of the email notifications that get sent from the Video Sharing application, including the “trigger events” which cause the notifications as well as the contents of each notification.
| Trigger | Recipient | Notes |
| Video Approved |
Member | N/A |
| Video Rejected |
Member | N/A |
| Video Tagged |
Member | from a Video play page |
| Video Commented On |
Member | from a Video play page |
| Video Flagged |
administrator | from a Video play page |
| Video Auto-unapproved due to Flagging |
administrator | from a Video play page |
| Video Processing Failed |
member, administrator | from a Video play page |
| Video Forwarded to Friends |
member’s friends | from a Video play page |
| Tell Friends |
member’s friends | from a Video play page |
API Support for the Blogs Application (For Developers)
This document is intended to provide an in-depth look at the Video Sharing application on the KIT Cloud Social hosted platform, to help you understand how the application can be enabled, configured and managed on a day-to-day basis.
If you prefer to host all of the video pages on your own web servers, or if you’d just like to use bits and pieces of the video sharing application, we offer a complete set of REST API calls which allow you to construct whatever kind of user interface you can dream up.
Regardless of which front-end deployment option you choose, the functionality of the video sharing application (and the content created by it) is managed in the Affiliate Center as described above.
Related Tutorials and How-to Articles
Intro To Photo & Video Sharing With KIT Cloud Social
Advertising in KIT Cloud Social Video Players
Custom Video Player Demo For NY Video 2.0
- This page was last modified on 27 June 2012, at 16:12.
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