Xerox, Microsoft spinoff develops Snapchat rival
Plano software company ContentGuard on Monday released a mobile application that allows users to control the time in which people can view content they share.
The application, which is available for iPhone users, allows users to select a preset amount of time for which the photos, video, documents and files they share will be viewable. When recipients receive the files, they are constrained to those preset conditions. The current version of the application allows users to set a time limit between one minute and one month.
The software is similar to Snapchat, which allows users to temporarily view photos and messages sent to them and then deletes the content once it’s been viewed.
“This is the year the privacy revolution started,” said Scott Richardson, chief product development officer. “We like to think in five years time, everyone’s going to be doing this.”
ContentGuard was founded in 2000 in Los Angeles as a joint venture between Xerox and Microsoft. For about its first 12 years, the company focused on providing software and technology for corporations. ContentGuard developed technology that’s built into Microsoft Windows, Xerox products and Nokia handsets.
The company was sold to Time Warner and Pendrell Corp. in 2011. In summer, ContentGuard relocated from Los Angeles to Plano to have easier access to tech talent and take advantage of the Texas tax breaks. It has eight employees and about 16 contractors.
For the past year and a half, the company shifted into consumer privacy products.
It released the iPhone app first, expecting to follow it with an Android and PC app in the first quarter of next year.
But beyond time limits, the company is planning to add other security features. It’s currently limiting the ability to forward content and developing a geofencing feature to couple with the time-limit ability. This would allow users to make certain content available only at certain locations. For example, hospitals could allow patients to view certain documents only within its walls; or teachers could allow students to view certain materials for certain time limits on the school grounds.
And that’s just the beginning, Richardson said.
The company is developing the same type of privacy control for web content. Users would be able to post something online and share it via Twitter and Facebook. But once the preset conditions were met, the link would become deactivated, breaking all the links on social media as well.
“We’re putting control back to the user on what they want to share,” Richardson said. “People are gong to be protecting what they share in the big way. It’s a consumer-driven movement.”
