KickApps Adds Video Advertising Support

By Irina Guseva | Published Sep 24, 2008

It was just last month, when KickApps kicked off a video deal with Akamai.

Today, the on-demand social media and online video and widget applications provider announced that it has made it “extremely easy” for web publishers to add video advertising to their editorial and user-generated videos using the KickApps Widget and Video Player Studio.

With drag-and-drop ease, it is now possible to add translucent overlay, interstititial, pre- and post-roll video and other new video advertising formats to all KickApps powered video players.

The World of Online Video Ads

As part of this new feature, KickApps supports out-of-the-box integration with Google AdSense for Video, Scanscout, Adap.tv and 24/7 Real Media. Support for DoubleClick’s DART and others should follow shortly.

Online video has emerged as one of the most engaging applications on the web today, and advertising budgets are following suit. Recent research conducted by Bain & Company in coordination with the Interactive Advertising Bureau finds that video advertising is garnering an average CPM of US$ 43.00, with demand for video inventory outstripping the available supply.

How It Works

KickApps customers, who have bought the advertising inventory from their KickApps powered social media and video websites, will be able to access these new advertising features. Integrating video ads is a simple three-step process:

Create a custom video player using the KickApps Widgets and Video Player Studio
Select from a list of modules of ad networks or pre- and post-roll
Provide the ad network’s publisher ID number or the URL of a Flash video file

KickApps Advertising Interface

“As social media and online video become a greater part of every web publisher’s website, technical and business complexity should be replaced with efficiency and an easy path to revenue generation,” said Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps.

Overall, KickApps continues to make it “incredibly easy” to create compelling social media and video experiences, along with making it easier for web publishers to monetize video on their websites. KickApps promises to make every web publisher and designer “a social media rock star.”

KickApps Platform

KickApps and its SaaS platform includes social networking, user-generated content, programmable video players, drag-and-drop widget building, WidgeADs and other applications that are tightly integrated with robust media moderation, member management and reporting.

KickApps has been busy lately making numerous additions to the platform as of late: instant messaging and presence awareness, local television stations support, integration with open source CMS providers and a KickApps 3.0 release.

The KickApps Platform claims to be able to integrate with any website using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, REST and SOAP. For more information, visit KickApps website.