KickApps, the industry’s leading on-demand social media, video player and widget platform, launches the KickApps App Studio, the next generation of its drag-and-drop Widget and Video Player authoring solution. Users of the web-based KickApps App Studio can create highly customized embeddable Flash applications with drag-and-drop ease, including the ability to integrate best-of-breed third party applications, content and web services.

The KickApps Widget and Player authoring tool already produces over 90 million app views per month.

Meebo and Yahoo! Maps represent the first third-party embeddable applications distributed via the KickApps platform. Meebo Rooms are available today and Meebo Community IM will be integrated into the KickApps Platform in the near future. KickApps previously enabled the easy integration of third-party ad networks to its video players (including Google AdSense for Video, ScanScout, Adap.tv, RealMedia 24/7 and DoubleClick DART).

KickApps will invite developers to submit their Flash applications and components to the KickApps Flex-based App Studio. As a result, any web publisher using the KickApps platform will gain instant access to the largest selection of highly customizable widgets, players and embeddable applications. At the same time developers gain distribution of their products to a marketplace that currently exceeds 50,000 web publishers, with over 1,000 new publishers joining each week.

“The KickApps App Studio and its ability to enable broad distribution of third-party applications like Meebo and Yahoo! Maps is an essential component of our plan to offer publishers best of breed applications from the global developer community. The KickApps platform provides the data layer that ties together a full range of applications, making integration seamless for web publishers looking to efficiently deploy engaging user experiences.” said Alex Blum, CEO, KickApps.

KickApps-powered websites can leverage Meebo to increase user engagement and time spent online in their communities. Meebo enables real-time social interactions with instant messaging and group chat at meebo.com and on partner sites across the Web. With Meebo Community IM, Meebo is providing a version of its popular instant messaging service designed specifically for seamless integration into content sites and online communities, thereby enabling live communication and real-time notifications between members.

“Meebo is excited to offer KickApps customers the ability to embed Meebo into their sites, thereby enabling real-time social interactions for users and increased engagement for communities,” said Seth Sternberg, CEO and co-founder, Meebo.