Social networking developer Slide—perhaps best known for hts FunSpace and Top Friends social networking applications—has inked a deal with major media companies to distribute video content on the popular social networking site Facebook via a new application called FunSpace Channels. Partners include Warner Brothers, CBS Interactive, and Comcast’s E! Entertainment channel—plus Hulu, the online video joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corporation. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Slide says it has ad revenue sharing agreements with “key partners.” Some reports have Slide both selling ad space in the channels directly, as well as participating in revenue sharing in ads run by its media partners.
“Media companies create and deliver entertainment, social networks connect people, and Slide is the conduit between the two; that’s social entertainment,” said Slide’s VP of strategy and business development Keith Rabois, in a statement.
Slide says it plans to roll out the service to other social networking sites—like MySpace—soon. One distinguishing features of FunSpace Channels will be it’s recommendation system, which will be based on the number of times a video is forwarded to others by a user, rather than on how many times it has been viewed.
Slide was founded in San Francisco in 2005 by Max Levchin, who co-founded PayPal back in 1998. Earlier this year, Slide focussed its efforts down to just three social networking application offerings: Top Friends, FunSpace, and SuperPoke.
