Athleague helps collegiate intramural programs and amateur sports leagues manage and run their leagues more efficiently. I spoke with Athleague CEO and co-founder, Ravi Mishra, last month via phone and really enjoyed the conversation. Please see below for some questions I had about Athleague and Ravi’s answers.

What Is Athleague?

Athleague provides an organizational solution and social network for amateur sports leagues. We make the lives of league organizers easier by giving them the tools they need to run their league, and we enhance the experience for players by providing stats, scores, standings and making their sports life more social.

Where did the idea for Athleague come from?

While we were in college, we couldn’t help but notice how poorly our school’s intramural program was run. The leap between that thought and the idea for Athleague was fairly straightforward, and we quickly realized that it was a need that wasn’t being met for many different types of leagues.

How does Athleague plan to make money?

Three ways:

1) Payment transactions – people have to pay for leagues, so we built a convenient payments module into our site and add a small service fee to transactions.

2) Advertising – many companies want to reach our user base, so we provide targeted, intimate means for doing this.

3) Affiliate sales – our users need to buy equipment, so we can point that at places where they can do just that. Currently, this is tied in with 2).

What is the number one thing you’re focused on with the business?

Adding customers, but expanding the number of marketing partners we have is probably a close second. We’re working with a Fortune 500 sports apparel company, but it’s always good to have a stable of companies advertising on your site.

How do you see social media tools and platforms affecting the way sports are organized and run in the next few years?

So, social media doesn’t really offer much for large scale league organizers. Smaller-scale sports leagues (especially casual leagues) can leverage social media on more of an ad hoc basis, but the large leagues really need the infrastructure and organizing firepower of a dedicated system.

However, I think where social media can turn this space on its head is advertising. Most of our competitors are charging for their product, and/or tacking on huge transactions fees. We think that by engaging the players and providing them with a great user experience, we can keep our product free and deliver next-gen marketing solutions for companies trying to reach our user base. The possibilities for combining branding/marketing with features that players love are quite intriguing.

If you had $1 million to spend on Athleague right now, how would you spend it?

• 10% toward more sales people (full times + interns)
• 10% customer acquisition incentives
• 25% for engineering hires to develop the product for other verticals
• 5% increasing salaries -to get us off Ramen wages
• 50% saved to increase the runway

For more on Athleague, check out this article in Mass High Tech.

I met their President/CEO, Davyeon Ross, last March at the 2009 IEG Sponsorship Conference. I had a great time chatting with him and we have stayed in touch since then. I think the AthletixNation platform is very interesting, especially as it relates to local sports websites and helping them add more content, highlights and things they may not otherwise have access to. Recently, I sent Davyeon a couple questions for an interview that  I thought would be interesting to post here on the blog.

1) What is the vision for Athletix Nation?

Our Vision is to make AthletixNation a resource for agencies, advertisers and publishers who want access to and the ability to associate with college sports content and interactive engaging applications.

2) What’s your background? Why did you decide to start the company?

I’m originally from Trinidad and Tobago and received a basketball scholarship to Benedictine College in KS (Go Ravens). At Benedictine I received degrees in Computer Science with minors in Math and Business while leading my team in scoring. After working a few years I went on to receive my MBA. I started off my career at Sprint in the Engineering group and was recruited to a start up boutique consulting firm. At eVergance I worked with numerous company’s nationally and internationally including T-Online (Germany), RIM/Blackberry (Canada), Sasktel (Canada), Business Objects (Canada), Siemens Medical Systems (Germany), Mattel (New York) and several others. I started AthletixNation because I wanted to combine my passions, sports and technology. It was also around the time eVergance was acquired and a perfect opportunity to capitalize on the things I had learned during my career.

3) What has surprised you most about the sports industry since you got started in it?

One of the most surprising things about the sports industry is how convoluted the rights structures are. As we continue to acquire more content and build relationships we continue to learn more about the rights. College by far is the most convoluted but I’m excited to be a part of the college sports experience.

4) What do you think the biggest opportunity is for publishers/companies to utilize your products?

Well many of our publishers have relationships with advertisers. I believe as they continue to leverage our products to enhance the online experience and supplement their existing content, there is an incredible opportunity to provide local advertisers with cutting edge engaging solutions outside the traditional banner advertising. Many of our publishers are local media outlets and these outlets have relationships with brands at the local level who are excited about being associated with their local teams.

5) What’s next for Athletix Nation?

This year we are hoping for a growth year. We have a great distribution network (over 400 publishers), access to great content and an exciting digital framework. We launched a couple apps on Facebook a month ago and we also have our bracket challenge app which I encourage everyone to play @ http://apps.facebook.com/axnbracketchallenge/. We are also heavily working on some mobile apps.

6) Video, fantasy games or mobile apps – which is going to be hotter or better utilized by sports properties this year?

Well, I think we are going to see a hybrid of all of these components. I hope to see video integrated into fantasy games being played not only on the web but also on mobile devices. Statistics show that video advertising and video usage is on the rise. AthletixNation hopes to see and be part of more integration of video into other mediums and applications to bring relevance and amazement to consumers. As it relates to sports teams, we should see better integration of video and games across the 4 screens (Mobile, TV, Jumbotron and PCs). Teams are doing a much better job learning about their audience and consumers which I believe will assist in marketing to these audiences.

7) If you had $1 million to spend on Athletix Nation right now, what would you use it for?

Two main things, I’d hire 3-5 sales executives and a few more engineers so that we could continue to innovate and sell our existing inventory. Oh, I’d also give myself a raise lol

How can people get in touch with you to learn more about you or your company?

I’m always accessible, you can email me at dross@athletixnation.com or send me a message on twitter @axnpres. I’m extremely responsive and open to new concepts, new relationships and new partners.

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Thanks for doing the interview, Davyeon.

I encourage any of you who may want to learn more about AthletixNation to get in touch with Davyeon and let him tell you more about what they’re doing. I’m also curious to hear what your thoughts are about his company, and I’m sure Davyeon would appreciate your thoughts and feedback, too.

If you’d like to see my notes from each panel, you can see them here. While the event and speakers focused on more than just sports, I did get some interesting sports insights. For example, I learned that MLB teams don’t have full control over their Facebook pages. The league can post things they want, which may or may not fit with what the team has in mind for its fans on Facebook. This isn’t good…teams need to have full control over their social media strategy and outreach. There has to be a balance between engagement and promotion. Teams know their fans best, so they should control this.

Enough about that. I want to share a few video interviews that I did at Social Fresh. I asked 4 guys – Marc Meyer (Director of Search and Social at Digital Response Marketing Group), Chris Barger (Director of Social Media at GM), Jeremy Hilton (VP  of Media and Technology at Mindcomet) and Chris Moody (Social Media Marketing Manager at Bandwidth) – to share their thoughts about the future of online metrics and measurement.

Check out the videos below to see what they think:

I also want to thank Dr. Tim Newman, the Coordinator of the Sport Management Program at York College for recommending me to Erik and sharing some of his time with me. I met Tim early this year on Twitter, then in person at the CSRI Conference in Chapel Hill. It was good seeing Tim again and meeting his wife and one of their daughters. Here’s the video interview Tim did with me. Tim-thanks for the opportunity and hopefully, I’ll see you again soon. And have a safe trip/awesome time in Malaysia!

Since Group Story is an NC-based company and since I’ve known George for a little over a year now, I thought it’d be fun to do an interview with him. I also think sports fans and athletes will be a good audience for them, and you can hear George explain why in the video. This is actually the first interview George has given about Group Story–he claims he’s camera shy, but if you watch the video, you’ll see why I don’t believe it. (hint: I think he gives a good interview).

Interview With Group Story Co-Founder George Junginger from Jason Peck on Vimeo.

Group Story has been chosen to demo at the Internet Summit in Raleigh on November 4-5. Check them out and drop me a line if you’re going to be there so we can meet up.

FanFeedr

One of my favorite things about the site is that when you first visit, a helpful screen pops up to tell you what to do. When people first visit a new site, not knowing what to do is often a barrier to signing up and utilizing the site, so this really helped clarify things for me. I also love the fact that they utilize Facebook Connect to offer a simple sign up process.

The site utilizes social elements by enabling people to follow their friends and see what news they’re interested in. Fans can easily comment on, email, rate, or share any articles they read via Twitter or Facebook. This is accomplished by a nice horizontal ribbon that appears at the bottom of the screen when you click through to see an article.

FanFeedr also has an iPhone app and a robust set of APIs for publishers to take advantage of. I’m really looking forward to following this company’s growth.

When Jeff Brunelle, from Carrot Creative, said he would be happy to put me in touch with FanFeedr’s founder/CEO, Ty Ahmad-Taylor, I had to take him up on it. Please see below for some questions Ty answered via email, after we had a nice phone conversation last week.

1) Where did the basic concept of FanFeedr as a personalized, real-time sports news aggregator come from?

The core concept came from a problem I had myself: I spent far too much time hunting and pecking around for sports news and information on multiple websites. Twitter was emerging at this time last year, and I also saw some of the conceptual success my friends at FanSnap experienced with their event-ticketing vertical.

2) What kind of sports fans do you think will use FanFeedr?

We believe that we can capture most of the market, from the casual fan to the Fantasy Sports player, primarily because the consumption lens is similar to Twitter and Facebook, and much less editorially-driven. Specifically, you can get all of the news about your favorite teams, or some of it, or just bits of it (e.g. “just show me video about my team”) in an easy-to-use manner.

3) The site has a nice mix of features that are news-focused and focused on sharing/socializing. Which features do you think are most important and make FanFeedr special?

Without getting too abstract, and comparisons to Rothko are both appreciated and deflected, often at the same time, we are trying to address a user’s media consumption needs along their social graph.

4) What has surprised you the most about the sports industry since you started working on FanFeedr at the end of 2008?

I came from the music industry when I worked at MTV Networks. Pop, rock, hip-hop and country. Sports people are as passionate as music people, but the level of detailed knowledge about the game continues to astound me.

If you go see a great concert, you will hear music person say: “Minus the Bear has one of the best hooks I have heard in the last five years.”

5) What’s next for FanFeedr?

We are adding Fantasy Sports lifestreaming: right now, if you are in a Fantasy Football league, your wins, losses, player drops and adds are not exposed to anyone besides the 7, 9, or 11 other people that you play with. We want to allow you to expose your activity to your social graph (i.e. friends) on FanFeedr, Facebook and/or Twitter.

6) Where do you see real-time sports news going in the next year or so?

As more athletes get onto Twitter, you are going to see greater connections with fans, as the final barrier to sports consumption, what the athlete thinks, becomes less opaque.

7) What do you think is the biggest opportunity for teams and leagues to utilize social media?

The teams and leagues can use social media for much better CRM. The Oakland A’s don’t have the clearest picture of what their fans do online, for example, because they haven’t done a good job of painting a picture of those fans. Put another way, social media inverts the retail store paradigm: a sports brand doesn’t own the store (which is Facebook, Twitter or MySpace.) The brand is a leasing space, and has to create an pleasant experience for users in those media.

If you had $1 million to spend on FanFeedr right now, what would you do with it?

You can’t shoot, edit and distribute “Hangover II” for that amount, so focusing on the core business:

If it was my site, I’d want to tweak a few design elements and integrate some features to allow people to more easily invite their friends and share content with them. But the way it is now seems to work. Over 6,000 members have signed up since the site launched a few months ago, though I think there is huge potential for growth.

Here are three of the questions I asked Kathy about the site/social networking and sports.

Fans have so many outlets now to share their passion for their favorite teams. Why should fans join official team communities instead of just talking on existing fan sites, blogs, forums and groups on other social networks? How do you attract these fans to the official team sites?

An official team site offers much more. When inside the social network you can navigate back to the home page and buy tickets, merchandise and check out scores, videos and picture. With social networking at the official team site fans can express themselves and interact with blogs, videos and pictures. This does not happen with forums. The social network has grown to 6,400 people in months. People are coming over from other sites at a rapid rate.

What has surprised you most since launching the site?

How fast the site is growing and how passionate the fans are. On launch day I was in a Starbucks watching almost 200 people join in a matter of hours. During games I see people blogging and commenting with enormous passion. Someone blogged about a group of handicapped kids facing a financial challenge getting to a game. The Pistons reached out and so did others in the social netowrk. Also, we are seeing alot of social events formed inside the social network. We can see the die hard bloggers coming back often to see comments on their blogs. All and all the social network is an ongoing party!

What do you think the future holds for online fan communities in professional sports?

Social networking is a must for professional sports to meet the needs of the the next generation that has grown up on Facebook and Myspace.

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Thanks, Kathy. If any of you reading this need help with design strategy, content strategy, influencer outreach or monetization ideas when building/growing your online fan community, let me know and I’d be happy to help.

Legacy Direct

1 – How did you become the guy to lead Legacy Direct into social media?

I was brought onto the Legacy Direct team as an intern in July of 2008, doing mostly research and administrative work. Within the first few months, I realized how significant the social media marketplace was becoming and wanted to create a blog to reflect the messaging of our company.

2 – Can you give an example of one of your your clients who has utilized social media to enhance his/her brand and connect with fans?

Sure. A great example is Natalie Gulbis, a LPGA Tour golfer, who has just recently began using Twitter to engage with fans and show them what she is all about.

**Take A Note: In less than two months, Natalie has over 2,000 followers–people who are interested in seeing updates from her about golf/life/whatever. Using Twitter is a GREAT way for athletes to show their human/personal side and connect directly with their fans.**

3 -We connected on Twitter. What about it made you want to bring Legacy into the community there?

I wanted to bring Legacy into the twitter community to strengthen the reach of our social media initiatives. I soon realized how valuable Twitter can be in the way of networking and building a brand.

4 – What is your favorite professional sports team and how do you currently get your news/updates about them?

My favorite professional sports team is the New York Mets. I currently get my news/updates about them by going directly to the team’s website or by reading blogs written by Mets’ fans.

5 -Have they ever tried to connect with you personally on social media sites (that you’re aware of)?

No, the Mets organization has not tried to do that. However, there are lots of Mets’ fans who operate blogs and are more than happy to connect if it means increased readership for their site.

6 – How would you like them to connect with you online and what kind of information would you want to receive from them?

I think it would be nice if the Mets had an “official” twitter account, where I could receive daily updates. A good example of a successful fan integration and public relations movement by a professional sports team is the Phoenix Suns, who have done a great job connecting with fans on twitter.

7 – Let’s say they wanted to connect with you and other fans but were unsure about the consequences/potential drawbacks. What advice would you have for them?

I would say, “Look at what the Phoenix Suns are doing with all of their social media initiatives and how they are staying on top of the latest technology. If you (the team) don’t start to embrace some of these new technologies, you will fall behind in terms of fan engagement and interaction.

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Thanks, Andy. I think we’ll see more and more teams and athletes taking note of these new technologies to increase engagement with fans.

Are you or your team interested in learning more about how to use Twitter to connect with your fans? Contact me and let’s talk.

1 -Let’s briefly talk about your experiences with marketing your company online. You’re active on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon. How did you decide to jump into social media and start participating?

I first got started with SM (social media) through a friend of mine who was trying to convince me that blogging would help my business to grow. For the first few months, it became an addiction and I had to learn to pick the SM sites that I most enjoyed, and that I felt would most benefit me on a business aspect. Being in the construction industry, it was hard to find people to connect with (within the construction industries) so I went for locals (triangle and NC in general). I am noticing more people in my industry blogging and micro-blogging now, and hope that continues to grow. Oddly enough, the main reason was to promote my business, but I now rarely do that on twitter, plurk or Facebook. It is more about connecting and networking with people.

2 – How has your involvement with social media affected your business and sales?

I would have to say that social media has given me great satisfaction in growing my business. My blog and the SM I participate in is the ONLY advertising I do. I have had articles written about me, been recognized as someone bringing high tech ideas to a low tech industry by people such as Darren Rowse, Wayne Sutton, and others who have noticed me on twitter and found my blog. The internet is how people find the products they need, there is no need to avoid that, instead we should embrace it.

3 – What is the #1 thing you’ve gotten out of your involvement in social media?

Probably the invaluable plethora of information I have discovered through the people I have met, both online and in person at tweet-ups and events like BloggerBash. The information I am talking about (what I was looking for) has to do with wordpress, blogging, SEO and other things which have helped me bring my website to the front page on most of the searches I wanted to be on. I also have become involved in a community that I didn’t even know existed a year ago.

4 – We are both big fans of the Tar Heels. Where do you currently get your news and information about UNC sports?

Currently, I get my info from ACC.com, espn.com, and only recently did I discover InsideCarolina.com.

5 – To your knowledge, has anyone from the athletics department at UNC ever tried to connect with you via social media online?

No not that I am aware of, but if they did, I would certainly enjoy it.

6 – How would you like to be connected with them online (if at all)? What kind of information would you be interested in receiving from them?

Any of the sites I use (twitter, plurk, facebook, friendfeed, etc…) would be great. I like updates mainly on anything basketball ie: scouting reports, injury reports, scores (I do miss the games sometimes) stats, upcoming game schedules etc..

7 – Do you think an athletics department like UNC should have a single presence on social media sites for all sports, or should it be broken down by sport?

I would prefer it to be broken down. But if that isn’t possible, having them all together may get me more interested in all things Carolina Blue!

8 – As it stands, TarHeelBlue.com is a very informative site, but InsideCarolina is where most of the conversations about UNC Sports take place. Would you be interested if UNC turned tarheelblue.com into more of a community site, with features such as forums, comments, ability to connect with other fans etc?

Wouldn’t that be great! I would certainly participate in anything like that.

9 – Many sports brands (and brands in general) are hesitant about getting involved with social media. I’m sure you also probably had some uncertainties when you brought your business into this space. What would you tell UNC if they were wavering or unsure about whether they should start using social media to connect with their fans?

All I can say is, no matter what the uncertainties are… it is viral! Next thing you know there would be Carolina Blue TweetUps and other fan get-togethers based on the communities created around social media. I think people are scared to hear what others may not like about the brands that turn to social media, but what they don’t understand is that these people are the ones that USE those brands! You should be listening!

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Thanks, Keith! I’m very interested in how people would like their favorite teams to connect with them online. I know how I feel about this, but am always curious about what other people think. How would YOU like your favorite team to engage you online?

Like I said before, these guys had such great answers that I had to split the interview into two posts. See below for some questions and answers from Part 2 of the KickApps interview.

Q) How does a brand measure whether its social networking presence/online community is successful or not?

A) The place to start thinking about this is why the brand wants to have an online community in the first place? If it’s a publisher where advertising and sponsorship revenue drives the business, this can be measured by the number of pageviews, increased CPM rates, audience engagement, etc. A more engaged community leads to more pageviews which leads to higher CPMs. Another reason might be a brand awareness and brand affinity exercise. Here, the number of active members of the community and the level in which they’re engaged becomes important. For engagement you look at things like the number of videos posted and viewed, number of comments and conversations. For a sports entity, it might simply be the increase in ticket sales, merchandise sales, linear viewership, etc. that has come as a result of the community experience.

Q) Say a team wants to create a site or implement community elements into its existing site and comes to KickApps for help. What are the first steps you take in assisting them?

A) The KickApps platform is designed to be largely self service. It’s designed to remove barriers to entry for our customers who want to add community functionality, video and content syndication using Widgets. If our customers have design and development resources it’s very easy for our customers to be up and running quickly. Our developer site has a lot of content in the form of tutorials and best practices that help our customers with the most common questions. There’s also a very active message board that is monitored by our support staff and developer community.

Having said all of that, teams or other sports properties who are seeking a very tightly customized, integrated solution but don’t necessarily have the design and development resources in house should work with us directly. While there are many steps in the process, at a high level, the first thing we would do is to really understand their existing community (b/c sports properties already have them!) and work together with them to determine what are the features and functionality that will be most relevant to that community. Second, we would scope out the project in depth (how it will look, feel, operate, etc.) so that the team was comfortable with the integration into their site. Finally, we would stand up the community in a matter of a few weeks utilizing our extensive ecosystem of partners capable of delivering slick, customizable community enabled sites.

Q) What are the biggest risks involved when a property decides to get involved in social networking?

A) The biggest risk may be to assume that just because you’ve built it ‘they’ will come. We advise our clients to start thinking early not just about the technical aspects of their community but also the programming and marketing dimensions as well. What will be featured on the site? How will they promote it?

Q) Are more of your clients in the sports or entertainment space? Or what type of client/industry do you think social networking works best for?

A) Our clients run the gamut of industries, however our highest profile and most successful clients to date have come from the sports and entertainment industries. These two industries are our main focus since the fan avidity and passion around sports and entertainment is extraordinary and fans are demanding the ability to interact online. Most of our clients already have a website and an audience. They add KickApps and social media to grow and increase engagement with that audience.

Q) What has been the response of advertisers to KickApps enabling web video on iPhones?

A) Clients have been very interested in the capability. As we’ve seen with the iPod, the iPhone looks to be a major game changer in that industry. Apple just announced that they’ve sold 1M iPhones. This is just the beginning. There isn’t a device out there that enables such a positive web experience. It’s very easy for our customers to support those users.

Q) Can you talk about how you are seeing widgets being used in sites powered by KickApps and what you think the biggest opportunity with widgets is?

A) Our Widgets are used in multiple ways. They can be used to syndicate content by embedding the Widget on any other site. Widgets are also the delivery vehicle for content, i.e. our video players are delivered as Widgets (which are embeddable). Finally, as a monetizable ad unit. As the Web 2.0 world evolves (both technology and business models) I think you’re going to see Widgets taking on a life of their own.

Q) What do you think the future holds for online communities? Is there room for another massive network like Facebook or will we see more smaller, niche networks begin to take users from the more general sites.

A) There’ll probably be a combination of the two. People have multiple interests but only have so much time in their day to really dedicate their attention. Think of it like a magazine subscription. Most people have a few based on their interests. You may subscribe to your local newspaper, but you’re not going to get all your information there. You’ll probably have a few different topically focused magazines you subscribe to. Facebook and the general interest networks will be a catchall for people. In Facebook’s case, a central place to socialize and meet up with friends. The niche sites will be an opportunity for people to drill deeper into topics of interest. For example, if you’re a car enthusiast, you may go to a site like Autobytel’s MyRide where you’ll find other enthusiasts and a lot of content about cars. At the end of day, people will likely end up with a handful in which they’ll invest their time.

The rise of social networking raises new questions: Who should get involved? Why should they get involved? How can they create successful communities, and who out there can help them achieve their goals?

One option is KickApps, which helps its clients deploy social media on their websites. They’ve helped clients such as Justin Timberlake, the AFL, and VIBE magazine integrate social elements such as blogs, videos, pictures and profiles into their sites.

I had the opportunity to send some questions over to Matt Bijur (VP, Business Development, and responsible for the sports vertical) and Michael Chin (SVP, Marketing) of KickApps. Because they gave such great answers I am splitting the interview into two posts. Please see below for the questions and answers from Part 1:

Q) Why should brands become involved in social networking? What about sports teams and leagues, specifically.

A) In many respects, social networking and the broader set of applications that fall under social media (i.e. user-generated content, online video and Widgets to syndicate content) are perfect for sports teams and leagues to extend the fan experience beyond actual sporting events. Sports fans form some of the most passionate communities online and offline and social media merely takes what sports fans do inherently in the offline world and enables an online gathering place for them. For teams and leagues, this represents a unique opportunity to maintain engagement with their fans after a game, on days when there aren’t games, during the offseason, etc. In practical terms, this results in new revenue opportunities through increased sponsorships, greater ticket sales, merchandise sales and advertising opportunities.

Q) Should brands start groups or pages on other popular social networking sites or should they build their own site? What criteria determine if a sports team/league or brand should do its own thing or work with an existing site?

A) The benefit of a brand building its own social networking site is that it allows for a direct relationship with its community (usually made up of customers). With social media platforms, the technical barriers to entry for this no longer exist. From a fan’s point of view, if you’re a fan of the Arena Football League, you’re more than likely going to www.arenafootball.com to get information and news about the team already. What better place to gather with other fans than the AFL’s own social network?

Many of our clients utilize popular social networks as supplemental strategies to their own branded communities by creating pages in those networks that promote their communities. While it’s great to have presence on all major social networking sites (where possible), those sites typically offer a wide range of content and a user base whose interests are varied. By establishing your only presence on a popular social network, you are exposing yourself to losing many eyeballs as they move from your content to an unrelated video/member that happens to catch their eye.

However, just building it isn’t enough. Teams and leagues need to consider what incentives there are for fans to join their social network. What unique programming and events will be available there that can’t be found anywhere else? Players and coaches themselves on the social network interacting with fans would be very compelling.

Q) KickApps has been called a “white label social networking platform.” Talk a little bit about what exactly this means.

A) Social networking is one of the four building blocks of our social media platform (the others are user-generated content, programmable video players and Widgets for content syndication). By using the KickApps platform, web site publishers and developers can very easily create and deploy community and video functionality on their web site. We’ve eliminated the hard work of creating and hosting the applications, so developers can just focus on unleashing their creativity in how they deploy social media and video on their sites. The platform is fully customizable to match the look and feel of our customers’ sites. Even though the social media and video is hosted by us, it’s a seamless experience for the member. They never leave the ‘brand’s’ online experience.

Q) What sets KickApps apart from other white label providers?

1) Service – We focus and invest on customer service. We don’t just give our customers the technology. We help guide them through what they can do to ensure success by consulting on programming and marketing (how to stand up an effective community, how to market/promote it, how to take advantage of other KickApps partners who can help grow your community, etc.) providing immediate and constructive responses to questions, concerns or any other feedback.
2) Features & Functionality – While there are many companies creating “noise” in this space offering bits and pieces of community functionality, our platform has all of the features and functionality that enable our clients to deploy fully functional, interactive social media experiences on their websites.
3) Viral Syndication / Widgets – Unlike any other competitor in this space, KickApps places a huge emphasis on letting users market the communities you stand up. Inviting friends is not enough – the concept of an “open portal” where people can take from the community and share pieces of it with friends is most powerful. This is done through our sophisticated widget builder.
4) Customization of Integration (APIs) – While our current hosted solution is extremely customizable via CSS, our APIs offer a much deeper level of integration and customization whereby the community pages are actually being served by your servers and you’re calling our APIs for the community functionality.
5) Media Management and Community Moderation – While many companies can build social media applications, most cannot deliver on the backend functionality required to perform efficient and effective media management and moderation.
6) Data Mining / Reporting – While communities are fun and exciting, there needs to be a business case behind these initiatives. We realize that and one of our major focuses is to deliver to you the data and reporting metrics that will help you better market to your constituents and earn greater advertising revenue through your sponsors. The data and reporting we provide are the underpinning of our entire platform.
7) Scalability – The architecture upon which community platforms is constructed is of vital importance. Our platform was designed by engineers from Disney and Deutsche Bank and is set up to handle the volume created by hundreds of major media entities.

Q) You guys built a site for the AFL. Say a team/league already has an online community. Since most people are already on Facebook or MySpace, how can leagues/teams get people to actually use their own social networking sites (if they have them)? What’s the incentive for people to use them?

A) As mentioned above, there has to be compelling content on the site. The programming element is crucial. What makes your community unique? When people have an affinity to a brand (or a sports team/league) they’ll gather around its properties, but only if it gives them a reason to do so. Teams and leagues have a unique opportunity to offer people content and reach that a generic community cannot. That might be access to players, coaches, contests, content, etc.

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I hope everyone found this as interesting as I did. Part 2 of the KickApps Interview is here. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this stuff.