Slide has always been touted as one of the Top examples in Widget Startups. i do agree. because there is nothing wrong with that it does. it is quite profitable. the problem is that Slide raised too much funding money for what they did and what their core market was and then asked for valuations that do not represent the value of what it can accomplish in a realistic manner.
What is worse. it is in the biz of surfing trends inside a Social Network Platform that evolves yearly making the market of what slide tackled very temporary.
This forces it to constantly trying to reinvent itself in order to look for revenue streams that give it the prospect of future projected earnings in a very uneven and risky way. the truth is that if Slide was not as Founded and valued as it is. it could happily chug along at is own pace without a problem and extend and adapt without changing its focus every 6 months or so.
But since that is not the case in the slightest. it now has side up with old media in the look of a shot at bringing media content to Facebook and elsewhere as Kara Swisher points out:
You almost have to admire the shape-shifting–if not a wee bit slippery–stylings of Slide CEO Max Levchin.
The serial entrepreneur– whose current start-up has made him the massively-funded widget-king of Web 2.0–has signed distribution deals with Time Warner’s Warner Bros. unit, CBS and Comcast’s E! Entertainment channel to allow users of its new FunSpace Channels video service to look at clips from shows.
Slide’s other media partners in the new deal include Current Media, Hulu, Universal Music Group, as well as 236.com, Break Media, CollegeHumor, FUEL TV, Howcast Media, Video Detective and YouTube.
The FunSpace video service will recommend content based on how much users forward clips to others.
To make money, Slide will get a cut of ads sold by its media partners, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Funspace is the name of this new Video Service that Slide will use as the new way for them to get more revenues. so they passed from making fun widgets to fun media?. fitting is guess. after it should not come as a surprise after the last hint they made when they did their VH1 SuperPokeFest promotion…
That is why i criticized Slide when i said that given the money they had and given the team and traffic they had. they could easily have done some pretty great Widgets with advanced functionality. they didn’t`. they also didn’t`expanded out from Facebook in a Timely manner either or showed interest in Blogs.
That means i think they had plenty of time and chances to do many things that could have allowed them stay of with Widgets full on. this new Media Content distribution thing hints at they making this their new priority. so even if they will not bail out of Widgets or Facebook Widget-apps like the ones they are known for. this should seriously downplay them and turn Slide in a new kind of Widget Startup.
