Filmloop raises $7 million for (yet) another play on photoslides

Palo Alto’s FilmLoop, which lets you share photo slideshows directly from your desktop, told us yesterday they’ve raised $7 million in a second round of funding.

Filmloop is different from most photo-sharing sites because you do it all from your desktop. First, you drag and drop photo images to make a slideshow (on your downloaded FilmLoop program). You can then select who to share the slideshow with, and if your friends have downloaded FilmLoop, they’ll get it directly on their end. It works via FilmLoop’s server, which communicates with your computer while online. Here is a tour which gives an easy overview.

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You can also send an email to your friends, and they can add photos to the filmloop you have created — good for parties, the company notes. It plans to make money from advertising.

But even on this desktop play, Filmloop has its competitors. There’s San Francisco’s Slide, run by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, and backed by former PayPal chief executive Peter Thiel, as we mentioned here. And Bubbleshare has a desktop feature.

Indeed, the Filmloop is starting off so late in the game, it will need to strike as many partnership deals as possible with big companies to have a fighting chance at getting some decent exposure. To that end, it has partnered with folks like Hewlett-Packard and eBay, but it is too early to tell whether the strategy will work.