KickApps First Social Media Platform to Support Web Video Sharing on iPhone
Posted by Dr. Macenstein
The iPhone’s lack of support for the Flash player has pretty much meant that the large selection of social media sites (which are pretty much ALL Flash-based) were off limits to iPhone users. That travesty has apparently come to an end, as NY-based KickApps has announced that any video uploaded to KickApps’ powered social media sites will be encoded into both Flash and H.264, meaning you can now watch uploaded videos on the iPhone directly through its browser. When a user plays a video, KickApps instantly detects which format is required and delivers the video via a compatible video player; in the case of the iPhone, videos accessed through its Safari browser are displayed via QuickTime. An example of the technology is available at www.KickFlix.net.
“Our platform is driven largely by the goal of eliminating barriers of entry to social media,†said Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps. “By supporting the iPhone browser, we’re providing our affiliates and their audiences with the flexibility to deliver and consume online video via one of the most exciting and innovative mobile devices on the market today.â€
Additionally, if you are developer, Kickapps has posted info on implementing the functionality at their KickDeveloper site.
In general I found the site worked well on the iPhone, although I found some page loads seemed to stall, requiring that I had to stop a page from loading and then hit “reload” to make it work. After the reload, however, the videos popped up quickly, and when clicked, went into “fullscreen” playback mode, which is very nice. Since I often use my iPhone to pass the time when waiting in lines, gas stations, or at the movies, it’s nice to now have access to a new source of crap to fill the void. Check it out, fellow iPhone users.
this is huge, actually. While obviously spending money to cater to the iPhone user base is likely not a great idea financially for many of these sites, I think we should support sites that ARE willing to take an extra interest in the Mac user side of things. It can only encourage others.