Slide may indeed be "the largest independent widget maker" on the web, as Max Levchin, founder of the photo publishing service, tells Venture Beat. But why on earth would an ambitious entrepreneur want the title?

First, Slide is only the largest if one assumes that rival, Photobucket, is indeed being sold to Myspace. And an exit like Photobucket's, of $250m, would be a disappointment to Levchin, who already sold Paypal to Ebay, for $1.5bn, and was looking for a bigger return from his next venture. More importantly, widget maker will become a curse.

Photobucket was unlikely to establish itself as a sovereign company, because the bulk of its users came from Myspace, a fact of which it was reminded, when the News Corporation social network, during negotiations, blocked access by its users to videos on Photobucket. Once Myspace has a robust inhouse photo service, in Photobucket, the position of Slide — which has also grown because of the popularity of its photo slideshows among Myspace members — will be even more precarious.

The fact that Slide is the "largest" of the widget makers won't necessarily intimidate Myspace and other publishing systems on which Slide perches; and the fact that it's described as a widget maker at all is an advertisement of weakness, and a dependence on bigger consumer brands. Better to abandon the term, and deepen its own direct relationship with internet users.