Max Levchin was in his 20's when he sold PayPal to eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) for $1.5 billion and his latest project, slide.com, is progressing swimmingly. According to an Associated Press piece, Slide is the number 1 widget maker. For the social networking uninitiated, widgets are those little applications people can put on their MySpace/Facebook pages.
Starting today, consumers will have the option of adding advertising to their widgets. This might seem bizarre, but Levchin is betting that customers will want to promote brands they love or hot new movies on their pages. As a social networker (albeit one who was late to the party), I've noticed that many people already do this on their pages: Abercrombie (NYSE: ANF) logos and pictures of Grey Goose bottles, to name 2 of the more common ones.
According to the AP piece:
If Slide's advertising ambitions pay off, Levchin hinted that the company might be in a position to sell its stock in an initial public offering as early as next year.
"Widgets aren't just about fun and games," Levchin said. "This is a big step toward maturity for us."
Given Levchin's track record and Slide's early leadership in the widget space, that could be an interesting IPO.
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