Here are my notes from Max Levchin's keynote and subsequent interview with Naill Kennedy - Max is the CEO and Founder of Slide.
(this was a great interview, worth reading all the way through)
Slide is the #1 Widget maker (FB + everything else).
134M unique viewers in June (ComScore)
#1 on Facebook. Top 3 of 4 apps.
50M+ apps installed.
1M new Flash widgets created daily.
7M active users on Facebook daily
Monetization:
Brands that have advertised on Slide:
ATT
Discovery Channel
Comedy Central
Paramount
Lions Gate Films
Pioneering the idea of user selected ads. Users choosing ads to show in their widgets, as part of their self expression.
Formula: consumer self expression for rich media (Flash Strategy)
Facebook changed everything.
Started off trying to port MySpace stuff to FB, and realized this was a bad idea.
Decided that FB was not about self expression, but media giving / sharing.
Most popular: Top Friends
Feature arbitrage. Filter your friends by stating your BFFs. Feature was missing on FB, and Slide built it during launch to see if MySpace users would miss this feature on Facebook.
Funwall - is FB's own wall but taken to it's limits. Take to MySpace proportions - add video and rich media etc. You can collect all of your Flash widgets on Fun Wall.
Slideshow account linked to Slideshow Home Base - Slide slideshows show up in FB account **
SuperPoke - more feature arbitrage. Taking a popular feature to its natural limits. There's also a game factor - the more you do, the more actions you get access to.
Moving into interview with Niall Kennedy and Max Levchin:
How are widgets similar to Paypal?
A. Very similar. Impacts 100Ms of people. When I left Paypal, the number one requirement was it has to impact 100ms of people. Universal, and there's a huge high that millions are looking at your project. Widgets as a concept was the fastest most interesting path to get there. It took Yahoo 15 years to get to where they are, Slide is less than 3 years old, and our reach is starting to show up on the same lists as Yahoo.
On the tech side, the comparsions are less obvious. PayPal is about behavioral analysis, with a piece of understanding how people will cheat. Slide is also about understanding why people click (but not about fraud).
Q. Do you intend to build a user network around your many impressions?
A. We are building a personal media network. We are building a system that understands the behavior of the viewers. In some cases we have to go beyond the Flash content and built actual apps. We're installing tiny TVs around the web, and folks are interacting with them. The media delivery part is the most interesting part of Slide.
Q. Are advertisers interested?
A. TV analogy works well because there is a show, with product placement opportunities. I can sponsor the chrome, I can put the ticker at the bottom - that part is accessible and easy to understand for advertisers. Choosing your own ad (users) is more radical, and newer for advertisers, and is only possible because we're big. We're learning too. We expect the industry advertisers to help us and tell us what the users expect. The important thing is that widgets were chose by the user. The relationship between the user and the widget content is the critical piece. You can't let ads disrupt that relationship.
Q. Fox bought Photobucket, and Comscore started measuring widgets. How does this change your relationship with advertisers?
A. Comscore's move was absolutely critical for the widget industry. Transition from - folks will put sponsored widgets on their pages TO, let's leverage existing installed widgets. Comscore must endorse things like widgets, because it's a new media / inventory opportunity.
Q. When you started Slide, it was desktop. Then you moved onto the Web. Is there a fear of networks locking down their pages. There's a symbiotic relationship - how do you manage the relationship with the aggregators to be a trusted content provider, model citizen.
A. It's easy. Doing good by the users is the driving principle. The security concerns are temporary. The underlying trend of widgets / apps doesn't have to do iwth consumers. If you look back in social networking history, there was Ryze. Ryze spawned Friendster, then MySpace, then Facebook. Something will probably follow Facebook. What creates the rocket has been some version of coolness, and hipness. Friendster is bouncing back in Asia. MySpace is still huge and retaining.
Same thing with blogs. Blogger was the darling, then Wordpress. As the social platforms go, they find themselves how do they retain users? Widgets / apps are the reason to stay at the network. We are the content in the mall. We are the stores that keeps people coming back. Nobody has the developer base to build every feature. If you want your folks to come back, you have to build valuable stuff.
Even in the face of the onslaught of the coolest new network. Retention is only possible if you open and let other folks help build features. Like MS - we need to own this core stuff, and outside developers can build the rest.
Despite problems with OS, the apps drove the retention.
Same with social networks.
Q. SN's have been descibed as infantile. Karate chops, etc. Is this an issue?
A. No. It's a glimpse of the opportunity. It's the early stuff at the mall, before anything else is there. Slide throws 20K sheep an hour. It's still early. it will move past this. There will be games. There will be professional stuff - my resume app. Just a matter of giving the app developers.
Q (audience). Seems like one of the biggest assets is Slide's cookies that are getting dropped all over the web. How do you manage your obligation to the consumer. How do you treat that info?
A. We study the info carefully. We make sure that it doesn't identify anybody personally. My PayPal credentials show that we understand how to secure data and treat private info with respect. But, aggregate info is valuable. We understand traffic patterns on every social network, probably better than those do. We know which networks are rising, and which are falling. This helps us strategize.
Q (audience). Do you record incoming and outbound clicks? Do you plan to share this info with the user.
A. Interesting question. Not so excited about getting third parties to mine data, but open to it if it benefits humanity.
Niall: Widgets are not self contained. Widget can understand page and serve in relevant stuff with user's permission.
Q (audience): Concept of network of mini tv sets. How do you pitch this to advertisers? If I'm an advertiser and want to reach a sports fan, I can advertise during a football game on TV. What's the equivalent of that for Slide?
A. Many approaches, no quick answer. It's about data mining. Cookies tell us what they interact with, where they came from, 90% of widgets are driven by previous instance of that application. So you know how did what, and why. So generally, because the way the ad industry thinks, we say "we can't guarantee you the following interests and demographics. Let us run a trial run, and we can see how it compares to the industry average." Beneath the guise of demographics interests - is the end desire of getting to an action. Getting to the action is more important than the demographics.
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Posted by: rolase | April 27, 2009 at 09:10 AM