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Overview of Next Platform Release – (Scheduled 1/25/11)

Today we announced the release of version 5.4 of our platform, which includes some improvements that we think you’ll really like.

Upgrade to Janrain Engage (formerly RPX)

To improve the login and registration process on KickApps-powered sites, we have enhanced our integration of Janrain’s Engage (formerly RPX) web service. Now, each KickApps customer who enables the Janrain Engage application gets their own unique Janrain Engage account, which can be individually customized (or upgraded) at the Janrain website. This allows each KickApps publisher to customize the sign-in options that are available on their KickApps-powered site(s) to their liking.

After the upgrade, your site visitors will now be able to log in using their Facebook, Yahoo!, AOL, Twitter, etc. ID’s, and associate that login with a single account on your site. Previously, if a member joined your site with their Facebook ID, they would only be able to log in with their Facebook ID on subsequent visits. After the upgrade, they can join with their Facebook ID and log in with their Yahoo! ID (for instance) and still be the same user in our system.

Also with this upgrade, you will now be able to turn on the “email verification” feature on the member settings page (navigate to Manage > Members, and look for “Email Verification” near the top of the page), and you will also be able to turn on community privacy (navigate to “Configure > Settings > Site Settings, and look for “Privacy” about half way down the page).

Existing KickApps customers who had previously enabled Janrain’s RPX service can upgrade to the new Engage service by checking a box on the Add/Remove Apps page in the Affiliate Center. Please note that once you upgrade to the new version of Engage you should configure the sign-in providers on the Janrain Engage website. Most of our customers will want to enable the Facebook option, in which case you will have to create a basic Facebook application at developer.facebook.com, and associate that application with your Janrain Engage account. Janrain has step-by-step instructions on their website for how to do this in five minutes or less.

For more info: www.kickdeveloper.com/api/index.php/JanRain%E2%80%99s_RPX_Service

BETA Release of the Events App

With this release we are doing something we have never done before…releasing a platform application that is not completely “done.” You can enable the BETA version of our Events application by navigating in the Affiliate Center to the Add/Remove Apps page (Configure > Settings > Add/Remove Apps), and checking the box next to the Events application. This version of Events does not have any known bugs, just a bunch of known limitations, which can be found at the URL below.

Once you enable this application an “events” tab will appear in your site’s global navigation strip and your site’s members will be able to create new events, view a list of upcoming events, search for events by keyword and view the details on any event that is in the system.

Site administrators will be able to search for and delete events in the Affiliate Center in the Manage > Media section.

For more info: www.kickdeveloper.com/api/index.php/Events_application

Updates to the Control Bar

To make it easier for administrators to add new content to their KickApps-powered sites, we have made some modifications to the “Control Bar” that appears across the top of your site’s pages when you are logged in as a site administrator. Previously, the “Add” button in the Control Bar allowed you to “Add a Page” or “Add an App” to your site. With this upgrade we have replaced the “Add” button with a “Content” button that has many more options for publishing all types of content to your site.

Depending on which Apps you have enabled for your site, clicking the “Content” button in the Control Bar will reveal a list of options including:

* Create a Custom Page
* Create a Player or Widget (this option will always appear)
* Create a Set
* Upload a Video
* Upload a Photo
* Upload an Audio Track
* Write a Blog Post
* Create a Message Board Forum
* Create a Group
* Add or Remove Apps from Your Site (this option will always appear)
* Manage Your Site’s Content (this option will always appear)

Reporting Updates

To more accurately count the number of times your widgets and RSS feeds are requested, we have upgraded our reporting system to include widget and feed requests that are serviced by our cache. As a result you will probably see an increase in the number of widget and RSS feed requests reported in the Reporting section of the Affiliate Center.

REST API Updates

To improve the performance of our API, we introduced support for “include” and “exclude” parameters on the Retrieve Member Profile call. Passing values along with these parameters will allow you to dramatically decrease the amount of data that is included in our payload, thereby decreasing the amount of time it takes to get this data into your application.

Sample Usage:

a) To retrieve basic information of the user, no media/fav media or friends information

api.kickapps.com/rest/user/profile/17862472/116748?t=F8P2h0akmEdtriwmU2jDL3sRbj/eyJiuD68dRmMiEEE=&include=basic

b) To retrieve basic information of the user , audios,favVideos,photos

api.kickapps.com/rest/user/profile/17862472/116748?t=F8P2h0akmEdtriwmU2jDL3sRbj/eyJiuD68dRmMiEEE=&include=audios,favoriteVideos,photos

Note: Basic information will be returned always, if it’s passed as a value for include parameter or not

c) To exclude all media/favMedia information of the user from the call:

api.kickapps.com/rest/user/profile/17862472/116748?t=F8P2h0akmEdtriwmU2jDL3sRbj/eyJiuD68dRmMiEEE=&exclude=audios,blogs,photos,videos,sets,friends,favoriteAudios,favoriteVideos,favoritePhotos,favoriteExternalMedias,favoriteSets,favoriteBlogs,sets

d) To retrieve basic information of the user and photos

api.kickapps.com/rest/user/profile/17862472/116748?t=F8P2h0akmEdtriwmU2jDL3sRbj/eyJiuD68dRmMiEEE=&include=basic,photos

Additional Bug Fixes and Enhancements

The 5.4 Release also includes a number of bug fixes and small enhancements that our customers have asked us about.

FIXED: API >> Retrieve Media Ratings call not working for (Audio,Photo & Video)\

FIXED: Moved Pro Video button to the MANAGE tab within the Affiliate Center (in between “Media” and “Members”)

FIXED: Certificate error when trial users upgrade their account to a paid membership.

FIXED: “Add a Friend” functionality when uploading a photo

FIXED: Clicking on a user profile picture a second time breaks the image

FIXED: “Cancel” button in the profile comment section does not work.

FIXED: Ratings are broken on all media play lists when a user sorts media using “most comments” sort order

FIXED: In the Affiliate Center (after clicking on the Comments tab), the default setting for comments does not reflect a proper count for pending comments.

FIXED: An error message will be displayed to users for any uploaded image that is less than 1KB

FIXED: Widgets and Feeds reporting does not include requests from asset cache.

Author: Peter DeCaro

Peter DeCaro is Director, Kit Social Product Management. His background spans over 17 years of customer, product and technical support expertise. Peter is available to assist with any technical support questions by contacting him via email, below.

E-mail: support@kickapps.com