A New York State court judge denied on Monday Amazon.com and Overstock.com's attempt to avoid lawmaker demands that the online retailers collect sales tax from New York state residents, even though the companies don't have a physical presence in the state. Neither company has commented on the decision, but there is a strong possibility that the case could move into the Court of Appeals as Amazon and Overstock continue their fight.
CollegeWikis, an online group for college students to send messages and create their own groups based on class year, dorm, or courses, has become Regroup.com. More importantly, the service also announced Tuesday that it's now integrated with Facebook Connect and that users can finally create private groups. The site's redesign and new features are live now.
KickApps, the online video player and social media platform, announced Tuesday the release of KickApps App Studio, which will provide drag-and-drop widget and video player services to users who wish to add third-party tools. According to the company, its users can create "highly customized" embeddable Flash applications using drag-and-drop functionality. And through KickApps' new partnership with Yahoo and Meebo, users can integrate Meebo Rooms and Yahoo Maps into their widget. KickApps says that more third-party partnerships are on the way. Plug-in APIs will be available in the second quarter.
iPhone developer Gorloch Interactive announced Tuesday that it has launched Boombox, a music streaming service for the iPhone and iPod Touch that uses Blip.fm's song library. Users are able to create playlists and purchase those songs from iTunes. The app is free and available now on iTunes.
The Washington Post announced Tuesday that it will provide live video coverage of President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural events on January 20. The show will start at 5 a.m. PST when the Obama family leaves the Blair House and conclude when the inauguration parade is complete. Post reporters using cell phone video cameras will talk with those on-hand and include the interviews in the live recording.
KickApps, a company that offers on-demand social networking and widget platforms, announced Tuesday that it raised $14 million in Series C funding. The round was led by North Atlantic Capital, Softbank, Spark Capital, and Prism Ventures.
The funding will be used for expansion into new markets, as well as product development, which the company believes, will help it spur growth in the market.
"KickApps is aggressively extending the scope of services we provide online publishers in a number of important ways," said Alex Blum, KickApps CEO in a statement. "As a next generation website operating system, our mission is to transform a number of traditional services -- video players, editorial presentation, advertising, analytics, marketing, customer relationships -- into highly interactive experiences that are contextually informed by live, actionable data."
KickApps currently powers social services on over 48,000 websites, including Guinness World Records and a New York Knicks Webpage. The company also powered John McCain's social network, McCainSpace, during the 2008 Presidential campaign.
See also: JS-Kit, Ning, and CollectiveX
The Web 2.0 development platform, KickApps, released Version 3.0 of their service today. For those who don't know, KickApps allows web site publishers to add a "social media" page to their site, which may include spaces for blog posts, pictures, videos, and a message board. The service also allows the user to embed widgets containing this media throughout their site. For a good example of what I am talking about, check out the newly launched Guinness World Records site.
The newest release will provide for more developer support through KickApps' new Open API's. Those with the skills for advanced customization are welcome to do so. Also, during with my conversation with KickApps' Michael Chin, he told me that KickApps will be the first platform to support applications written for Facebook in FBML. This means that KickApps users will be able to embed Facebook applications on their website.
KickApps is also starting to target smaller publishers and making their tools more accessible to everyone. They do have big name affiliates like Guinness World Records, which I mentioned above, but they really want to break into the small publisher market as well. The publisher control panel has gotten a major overhaul and includes traffic statistics, much like Google Analytics. They have also implemented a "news feed" similar to Facebook's to inform you of activity on your KickApps features.
KickApps is also introducing a widget design studio. They have included the ability to turn any part of your KickApps page into a widget with only one click. I think that the widgets are where KickApps' biggest value lies. Their widgets flow with the actual site much better than their dedicated page does.
KickApps has some really interesting features and they will see a good bit of success from this release. They just introduced some really killer features and it is definitely worth taking a look at. There is certainly real value in creating a social community around your website, for the big players and the little publishers, and KickApps is in a great position to capitalize on that market.
Can the combined power of Vibe magazine, MySpace, and KickApps' social multimedia platform uncover the next great MC? That's the plan, and they're all hoping three is the magic number.
Vibe Verses 3, an online rap battle that lets aspiring MCs upload videos of themselves spitting rhymes, launches today.
The viral contest, promoted on both Vibe.com and MySpace, is using KickApps video widgets to let rappers and their fans embed the clips in MySpace profiles and other Web pages.
Participants in the contest select from one of 23 beats, then make a video of themselves performing their own lyrics to the track. MySpace users and members of the Vibe online community can then vote on each video; the number of votes determines the finalists.
Wyclef Jean of the Fugees picks the overall winner of the contest on November 30, and he has a personal stake in his selection. The winner of Vibe Verses 3 will be the opening act for Wyclef on December 4 in Los Angeles. The contest winner will also get a full-page ad in Vibe magazine.
According to the press release, more than 1,000 videos have been uploaded since May as part of the three Vibe Verses contests.
Submitting your own video for the contest is free, but you'll need to join the Vibe Rap Battle community to upload your video. You can listen to all 23 backbeats here and get instructions on how to participate here.
One quick tip: use the right microphone for the job. Say yes to a handheld condenser mic, and take a pass on those skinny wand-shaped mics that Bob Barker used to use.
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