KickApps Social Media
Mitch Pirtle, CMSExpo
May 1, 2009 Chicago

Who am I?
Joomla founder
Former VP at KickApps
NYCJUG founder
Hardcore bassist
Skate punk
Soccer coach

In the beginning...
There was Joomla! And life was good.

Joomla! is great for nerds
Provides framework and CMS
MVC framework
Objects!
Easy to extend
Easy to skin
Legendary administrative interface

Then the trouble starts
“Hey, can we add social media to our website?”

Good start, but you need:
Comments Widgets
Profiles Syndicated feeds
CDN support Groups
Blogs Privacy settings
Points & Levels Rich media
Video Players

Decisions, decisions.

JomSocial
Joomla! native, commercial extension

Community Builder
Joomla! native, open source

Constraints of this approach
No CDN
No clustering
SPF (Single Point of Failure)
Not all social features to support UGC, syndication and
rich media

You can roll your own, too.

MTV’s Quizilla
World’s highest-traffic Joomla! site?

Constraints of this approach
Expensive
Long development timeline
Developer resources needed
Hosting is still a complex challenge to overcome

There is an easier way.

About KickApps
Whitelabel Social Media On Demand

Big communities
One example is U2 Zootopia

Extensible
National Geographic, custom PHP platform

KickApps Features
User Generated Content: Videos, Photos, Audio,
Blogs, Discussion Boards
Social Features: Comments, Ratings, Points & Levels
Media Features: Widgets, Players
Syndication: RSS feeds
Active development, new features added frequently

Affiliate Center
Powerful tools to manage your community

API options
SSO (Single Sign On) API interface using SOAP
RSS API
Javascript API
REST API

Developer resources
KickDeveloper, for developers using KickApps
and all kinds of external platforms

API Reference Wiki
Current, searchable documentation for
developers

And it integrates with Joomla!

Joomla SSO Plugin
Hosted at JoomlaCode.org

Introducing:
THE KickApps Joomla!

KickDeveloper
Stock Joomla!, with minimal modifications

Campuran
KickDeveloper community member, active site

Food Network’s Food2
Fresh out of the oven!

THE KickApps Joomla!
Stock Joomla! 1.5 series
SSO plugins
Stable, extensible platform for development

What can you do with it?
Push all media to a CDN Points & Levels
Comments Widgets
Ratings Video players
Profiles
Discussion Boards
Blogs

But wait, there’s more.

Not into Joomla!?

SSO Plugins for All
Boldly attempting to please anyone & everyone.

Drupal?
You’re covered.

For Scotch Lovers
Drupal site, uses SSO plugins

WordPress?
Yup, got that too.

Dub & Reggae
WordPress, uses SSO plugins

Not into packaged
solutions?
Ok, suit yourself, and your inner alpha geek.

Everyday Explorers
Custom PHP platform uses REST, SSO and RSS
API interfaces for complete customization

Useful Social Resources

Jeremy Owyang
Forrester analyst, social media researcher
extraordinaire

Connie Bensen
Community Manager supreme

Chris Kenton
Marketing, technology and society

KickApps Linkage
http://www.kickapps.com - main website
http://www.kickdeveloper.com - developer community
http://www.kickdeveloper.com/api - API reference
http://kickappsgallery.com - KA gallery of sites

Time for my favorite game
Stump the Geek™

So what are you going to do?

Thanks!
http://www.mitchitized.com
http://twitter.com/mitchitized

Additional Credits
“Squinting Eye”, via stock.xchg:
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/555352
by gabetarian:
http://www.sxc.hu/profile/gabetarian