TechCrunch is reporting that MySpace is buying Flektor, a service that lets people quickly create widgets using text, music, photos and video.
MySpace will acquire Flektor, a just-launched service that allows users to create widgets from photos, video and text, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. This comes right after the news of MySpace’s pending acquisition of Photobucket last week for $250-$300 million. This will be a much smaller deal, in the $10-$20 million range, possibly with an earnout.
Flektor competes with more established startups like Slide and RockYou, and launched only a few weeks ago. Still, insiders say that the company has developed a killer set of tools to create slide shows as well as much more elaborate widgets that include audio, video, photos, text, effects and transitions. In our testing v. Slide and RockYou, Flektor came out way ahead in usability and features.
It's an odd acquisition, though, since Photobucket also has a slide creation product that competes with Flektor.
Is MySpace trying to become more of a storage and widget tool or is this just part of an onverall plan to improve MySpace.com? Better widgets mean more people might promote MySpace by putting a MySpace (Flektor) widget on their blogs, other social networking sites or even eBay so this could also explain the strategy. Flextor mentions using widgets on eBay so the auction site must be a place people frequently use them to help explain the products they are trying to sell.
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