-alex
ceo/photobucket

MySpace would definitiely ban RockYou and Slide because those widgets are annoying to site visitors. However plain photos are not annoying, because they just stay still. When Phtobucket-Adobe tools come out, you will see how amazing they are - and they will be very different from the other companies in the space.

Why is Photobucket is in a much better position than Slide, or other photo sites? Because it is known how to charge users for bandwidth and support it with advertizing business model. There are ads on Photobucket site, and every one of those “bandwidth exceeded” images on Myspace is an ad for the photobucket service…myspace let’s other companies keep the money from private sites. They can’t cut their users off from their photo host! You are right - there is no way those companies will make money. They certainly can’t charge the same way photobucket can. So they will die.

While Slide and other photo sites may be growing faster than Photobucket, and adding features more quickly, they currently have no revenue moddel. And they never will. Do you really think that they’ll be in a better position 12 months from now? Photobucket will just keep growing and making significant partnerships - today photobucket offers audio and video uploads and hosting? Does Slide? No. And frankly, that technology is too difficult for them to develp.

I mean, do you think that Slide will be able to go to brands and get media companies to sponsor the slide show widgets… NO WAY. The only company that has done this is Pandora - and they will remain the only one because they have more traffic than Slide - and better techniology.

I happen to run a company that is not on techcrunch web 2.0 radar, and we are using widgets. We have more widgets out than many VC funded companies that have been featured on Techcrunch (although less than slide or photobucket). This is my background info, to emphasize that I know what I am about to say.

Our traffic is very expensive, but ads do not cover it. This is because when you have widgets, your bandwidth is NOT due to you pageviews, it is a collateral damage to you: the traffic is not yours, but you are paying for it. Users open myspace pages with your widget, and in 80% of the cases they do not even notice or do not interact with your widget, but you are still paying for the bandwidth. This is not so for a destination site, where at least if you pay for bandwidth, it means that your pages have been viewed. As if this was not enough, putting ads in the widgets is currently a big NO-No - what if myspace bans us? Because we are earning money off their pageviews? I am hard pressed to find a popular widget with embedded ads.

I am really hoping that soon there will be some sobering event, like oil hitting $100/barrel, so that all this web 2.0 bullshit gets sorted out.

Recently I signed up for Flickr since they have very nice interface and all my yahoo contacts were there. But since then I am feeling that Flickr lacks some of the very popular features like :
1. No direct integration with popular Blogging tools.
2. No slide show tool (they have very basic badge tool which is sooooo tiny).
3. No way to share your favorites.

and lots more.

They need to give us an upgrade. Long time no activity.
Oh Yes, they have a limit of 4cmX4cm on your avatar. (Really stupid).

Good for them - nice to see them making moves like this in the market.

i wanted to do UWAYCOOLr based on Flash - cuz i see 99% of whass out there in Photo Slideshows is boring crap*

i’ll be excited to see what they’ve cooked up!!

Cheers! Billy ;))

We’re receiving feedback on that. We recently began asking for a credit card to sign up for the trial but are considering changing that part of the sign up process. Thanks for the feedback.

I like your site, it looks like it could compete well in its sector especially given the so-called 100 million competition. BTW Woomp is another site in that sector. However, I think Filmator differs in as much as it allows intelligent control over the timeline and in effect online presentations can be made, as can documentaries. This is where Filmator is different from the likes of those mentioned thus far and it sounds like Adobe and PhotoBucket are going to roll out some think that also has control over the timeline. I think this would be a first in the way of ‘direct competition’ for us. Given our service is free for non commercial use, I look forward to poaching their customers, just like they poached our idea. Steve

Saw Filmator for the first time. I haven’t been able to check it out yet. This new tool from Photobucket is only news because of their size. Filmator as well as others (including us - Photagious) have had capabilities similar to this for a while. We’ve had it for about 6 months now.

Anyways…this is what makes it interesting/difficult/exciting for smaller sites. The mass market doesn’t have room for too many video sites. But there are tons of niche markets that smaller sites need to target to become profitable.

Now…Slide is something I completely don’t understand. a $100 million dollar valuation with little to no revenue? What’s that even mean?

*FWIW - I know what it means…they need to be acquired.