Slide.ly Is Bringing Ba...

The lowly photo slideshow is not dead yet, or at least that’s the hope of the team at Tel Aviv-based EasyHi , which is debuting its new product Slide.ly today, backed by $1 million in seed funding. The company aims to pick up where Slide.com ( acquired by Google in 2010 ) left off. It’s building a slideshow creation tool for the new age, using sources like Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Pickplz, and Picasa, as well as Google Images, photos from your friends or those from your computer. You then mix that content with music from SoundCloud and YouTube and add – you guessed it – Instagram-like effects. Although there’s no space on Facebook to “embed” your glorious creation permanently, as Slide.com’s shows were once pinned on dizzy Myspace pages, the resulting slideshows can be shared to your Facebook Timeline or page, tweeted or emailed. EasyHi , founded in 2010, is led by CEO Tom More, who has 12+ years experience in building Internet apps, but whose personal passions for music and photography made building something like Slide.ly a good fit. “Creative self-expression is in our DNA,” he says of EasyHi, now a team of ten. The company’s value proposition, at first glance, sounds a lot like that of instant slideshow tool, Animoto , photo collection-sharing service Erly , or many others competing in the space with DIY or automated tools that let you make jazzier, more social-infused alternatives to PowerPoint presentations and online photo albums. But More says that his vision extends beyond slideshows. “We look at this space as a mere starting point. What we are here to create is a new way of telling a story, and there’s usually more than one photo for every story,” he explains. “The stories we’d like to help users capture are personal (as many similar services attend to), but are also topical stories that mix your own photos with related media, group stories that combine photos (and soon videos) of you and your friends, fan stories that mesh personal photos and video with your favorite music and local stories or real-time events.” Ah, so that sounds more like Storify , it seems, even if Slide.ly is starting out focused on the consumer photo-sharing space. EasyHi, which already has 500,000 installs of its e-card application, plans to grow Slide.ly’s user base by tapping into its current audience. Once established, the eventual business model is to offer a freemium service where things like custom themes and templates could be in-app purchases. Slide.ly is still in closed beta, but there are 100 invites for TechCrunch readers here . Just use the code “ techcrunch ” when signing up.

Ultra-Targeted Advertis...

When I was younger, my parents liked to listen to the big soft rock stations in Los Angeles. Once in a while, the sappy love songs would be interrupted by an emotional dedication from a boy/girlfriend to their significant other. It was awkward, but also kind of beautiful. But mostly awkward. Now it sounds like Pandora has made an impressive gesture toward keeping that tradition alive, while also demonstrating the power of its ad targeting. So yeah, this happened: Someone, specifically someone named Kyle Taylor, used a Pandora ad to propose marriage to his girlfriend of almost six years. You can read the full account in his blog post , but the Pandora-relevant bit begins after Taylor has decided that this is a great idea, and has sent off a customer support request: I started to work with the team at Pandora and they told me this has never been done before, so they would be more than happy to help… that’s when I knew this was going to be it. After working with the creative and technical teams to figure out the best medium, getting passed to their audio advertising team to get a script together and recorded by an awesome voice actress, and once it was finalized it went back to ad trafficking to test out my ad and see if it worked. Of course, it worked out perfectly. (Throughout this whole process, I had to lock down my email account and step out for “unexpected” phone calls a lot – luckily I’m a planning ninja.) That’s the set-up. As for popping the question itself, Taylor decided to do it on the night of his graduation dinner from University of North Texas. It was carefully planned — he picked a restaurant whose driving distance would create the perfect timing for the ad. So he turned on Pandora (which was built in to his girlfriend’s Hyundai Veloster), and as he pulled onto a service road, the marriage proposal started to play. Now, you might be thinking that while this is pretty damn impressive, it was incredibly awkward for anyone else listening. In fact, CTO Tom Conrad says that’s “very, very unlikely” that anyone else heard the ad, thanks to the targeting that’s powering Pandora’s efforts to steal local advertisers from terrestrial radio . In this case, the ad was targeted at “very old listeners” in a “sparsely populated zip code,” Conrad says. So Taylor entered some fake demographic information to put himself, and no one else, in the target. The result? He used Pandora’s advertising to deliver a genuinely personal message. Oh, and by the way: She said yes.

Here’s What Could Kill ...

Facebook is nearing a billion users, but what could topple the big blue giant? Government intervention, the shift to mobile, and a loss of “cool” all have the power to violently disrupt the social network, or at least cause it to lose its strong grip on the market. Here’s a look at the four things that could ruin Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of a single site that connects the world. The thread that runs between all these pitfalls is their potential to make Facebook irrelevant. If you can’t access it, its overrun by ads, there’s something better, or it’s simply uncool, Facebook could fade away. Big Brother Facebook is banned in China and access is or has been restricted in several countries including Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Right now this is limiting the social network’s growth potential. But if disputes with governments over what content is appropriate cause it to be shut out of more countries, these roadblocks could divert users to other local social networks. That would fracture the value that comes with having such a high percentage of internet users in one place. For example, Singapore is a valuable market with a strict government that could drop the ban hammer on Facebook. Regulation around privacy could also slow Facebook down and make it more vulnerable to competition. Facebook narrowly escaped privacy audits from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Union . If the government of a core market put restrictions on how Facebook can launch new products or what features it can show where, it could create opportunities for startups to eat Facebook’s lunch. Imagine how much bigger a threat Foursquare would be if Facebook had been restricted from launching its Places location service. Competition From The Next Mark Zuckerberg Facebook doesn’t actually need to worry much about Twitter , Google+ , or international players. They’ve failed to offer something revolutionary enough to make early adopters ditch Facebook, or mainstream enough to appeal to everyone. What big blue needs to worry about is the next social product visionary, the next Mark Zuckerberg that could turn Facebook into the next Myspace. While acquiring and acq-hiring top talent from companies like Instagram was easy when it had pre-IPO stock to throw around, recruiting that next Zuck to side with Facebook rather than wage war against it is about to get tougher. Same goes for keeping its current rockstars from leaving to start a true competitor. It might take a big hardware change like eyewear computers , holograms, or apps you download straight to your brain to finally make Facebook obsolete. Even then that upstart would have quite the uphill battle, but so did Facebook when it launched. Smaller Screens, Small Ad Revenue Staying afloat on display ads won’t cut it if the social network wants to live up to or surpass its ~$100 billion valuation, as Chris Dixon writes . It will have to think bigger. But for now, it has to worry about mobile. Handheld devices have less room for ads and Facebook’s long list of features. Currently, Facebook only shows a few mobile news feed ads per user per day, while it shows as many as four to seven ads per page on the web. But if Facebook chokes mobile with too many ads, usage could plummet. As more users shift the time they spend on Facebook from the web to mobile, it will make less of the money that keeps the lights on for the whole service. To counteract this Facebook is aggressively acquiring and hiring from mobile companies like Instagram in hopes of getting its mobile site and apps up to draw more eyeballs . However, while it has a huge footprint of over 500 million mobile users, there’s widespread discontent with the speed of its mobile apps. Many people think they’re cluttered, and complain of slow loading speeds. Mobile is the biggest threat to Facebook, and the company  admits it . If it can’t make more compelling mobile apps and earn more money from these small screens, the shift to mobile will see Facebook lowered into its own grave. Losing Its Cool Facebook doesn’t want to be cool. It wants to be a  utility. It wants to be the cell phone or the television, not Virgin Mobile or HBO. But the fact is that a big reason Facebook is so popular is because it started by being accessible to only the most envied demographic in the world: Ivy League college students like those at Harvard. It used that prestige to spread like wildfire on every American college campus, and the sexiness of young adulthood to capture the teenage market. Its popularity in the trendsetting United States soon pulled in the rest of the world. But now your mom is on Facebook. You grandma, professor, little cousins, and plumber are too. It’s not exclusive anymore. Usefulness is what keeps it afloat, but cold, dry, utility for everyone is vulnerable. And soon Zuckerberg will be 30, and he might no longer be seen as the geeky boy genius challenging the adults. He’ll be one of those adults. There are already signs that  apathy and distrust for Facebook are setting in . The slick destroyer of today’s social network would be something that starts elite but that gradually opens up like Facebook did. It would be designed specifically for the hip and young in-crowd. It would recruit big celebrities and carve out an influential niche from which to grow its power. This could be what makes Facebook seem old and boring. And most people don’t want to go somewhere boring every day. That’s what jobs are for. [Image Credit: WaterySoul , TheFW , E:TB .]

Apple Poised To Keep Th...

If the rumors pan out, Apple’s next MacBook Pro line will set the notebook world ablaze with a thinner chassis, USB 3.0 and a 15-inch high-resolution, so-called retina display. Of course it would pack the latest Intel silicon with rumors and logic pointing to an Ivy Bridge chipset. Sounding a different from the long-rumored 15-inch MacBook Air, this model, if it really exists, seems appropriately equipped with impressive hardware to retain the Pro designation and lead Apple’s charge against the onslaught of so-called Ultrabooks. The current MacBook Pro has undergone very little cosmetic change since its introduction in 2006. And for good reason, too. It’s a good-looking machine and try as they might, other notebook manufacturers have yet been able to replicate its sex appeal. In fact, according to 9to5mac’s report , the next version would not be drastically different either. Reportedly, the next model will incorporate many familiar design cues albeit in a thinner chassis. The most notable changes seem to be the elimination of an optical drive and the power button moved to the top right of the keyboard. Intel is in the early stages of rolling out its next generation of mobile chips, which Apple will likely use for the next version of the MacBook Pro. Codenamed Ivy Bridge, these chips boost improved performance, better battery performance, and come with native support for both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt connectivity. Interestingly enough, 9to5mac states that the next MBP will use several of both interconnects although in the past Apple has seemingly ignored USB 3.0, instead championing Thunderbolt’s faster speeds and multi-protocol support. Still, USB 3.0 offers dramatically faster speeds than USB 2.0 and it’s completely backwards compatible to the older spec. While a thinner chassis and improved computing performance are impressive enough, the next MBP is rumored to launch with a so-called retina display. 9to5mac doesn’t detail the screen’s resolution, but in order to fall into Apple’s own definition of a retina display — that is, a display that boost the maximum amount of detail the human eye can perceive at a somewhat arbitrary distance — the resolution would have to be insane by today’s standard. For example it would have to exceed (possibly by a factor of two) the new iPad’s 9.7-inch screen with a resolution of 2048 x 1536. Today’s rumor peg the new model with a summer release. Best Buy is already slashing prices on its MacBook Pro inventory, somewhat signalling that new models are incoming. Pricing would likely be inline with current models although it wouldn’t be surprising to see the retina display positioned as a premium upgrade with lofty price. The current MacBook Pro is in a desperate need of a weight loss regimen. As PC makers are utilizing Ultrabook design elements in full-size notebooks, Apple’s professional line is looking a little bloated in comparison. As an owner of a Core i7 15-inch model myself, I’ll admit to look longingly at coworkers rocking a featherlight MacBook Air. However, I love the larger screen and more I/O connections of the Pro line and am willing to put up with sub-two hour battery life and enough heat to fry an egg. Even if today’s rumors don’t pan out exactly to the letter, it’s a safe bet that Apple’s next MacBook Pro refresh will be something special in its own right — at least that’s what I’m telling myself as my 15-inch MBP is currently cooking my thighs. [image via applemacbook.com ]

This Is What Developing...

You know how all Android developers complain about fragmentation? Yeah, this is what fragmentation looks like. Animoca, a Hong Kong mobile app developer that has seen more than 70 million downloads, says it does quality assurance testing with about 400 Android devices. Again, that’s testing with  four hundred different phones and tablets for every app they ship! The photo above is just a sampling of Animoca’s fleet of Android test units. Yat Siu, who is CEO of Animoca’s parent company Outblaze, snapped and posted it from Outblaze’s headquarters today. In total, Siu says their studio has detected about 600 unique Android devices on their network. “We haven’t managed to track down all of those devices because, in large part, they are no longer available for sale,” he says. Sad cakes! On top of that, Siu said that the number of handsets from the lower-end Asian manufacturers is also growing rapidly. These are the phone makers that Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop was probably talking about in his famous “burning platform” memo  when he said that are Chinese OEMs were “cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, ‘the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation.’” If you take those out, the actual number of devices you need to test for is much lower. But if you want to break into Asian markets, these phones matter and make it especially challenging for Android developers to ensure their apps work on every single Android device. Android fragmentation is a huge issue because developers have to check their work on dozens of devices. Animoca happens to be backed by Intel Capital and IDG-Accel, so it has the resources to buy all of these devices for testing and pay employees to use them. But imagine the long-tail of developers! Imagine the people who make the more the roughly 500,000 apps in the Google Play store. Total nightmare. It puts a real dent in Eric Schmidt’s prediction from six months ago that developers might start going Android first within six months. His deadline is up now and there aren’t signs of this happening. Appcelerator did a survey of 2,100 of its developer clients in March and found that, if anything, interest in Android development is stagnating . Siu is nonplussed though. He’s told me in the past that thorough QA testing makes Animoca’s apps retain users better because so many other Android developers do a bad job at it. Unlike iOS users who throw up their hands in frustration, write bad reviews and just leave, Android users tend to be delighted when they find apps that actually work flawlessly. He adds, “We like fragmentation as users prefer choice. We are not big believers that one size fits all.”