Scribd’s e-book store jump-starts The Sower’s mainstream success
Scribd, a company that lets you share documents online, is starting to shake up the book market.
Author Kemble Scott’s previous novel SOMA was published traditionally and became a bestseller, but he decided that his new book, The Sower, included so many topical references that it might feel dated by the time it was published in 2010 or 2011. (That concern casts a rather dim view on the book’s chances for longevity as a work of literature, but… Continue Reading
Scribd to sell 5,000 e-books from Simon & Schuster
Scribd, the site that lets users upload, share and embed documents, first launched its e-books store back in May as a potential competitor to Amazon. Now it has inched closer to its goal with a deal to sell 5,000 titles from major publishing house Simon & Schuster in the form of digital e-books.
Many publishing houses are shopping around for new online distribution opportunities. E-books may have only generated $100 million in revenue last year, but… Continue Reading
Authors take control in Scribd’s new eBook market
Scribd, the popular site for sharing documents, has launched a store that could eventually grow into a serious competitor to Amazon. There’s a bit of David-and-Goliath to the battle (not that Scribd has to kill Amazon to succeed), but there are reasons to think the smaller site might become a major player: Not only does it already attract 60 million readers a month for its free content, but its accessibility and flexibility could make it… Continue Reading
Document-sharing site DocStoc rebrands to keep up with rival Scribd
DocStoc , the site that lets you post, share and embed PDFs, documents and other files — much like its prime competitor Scribd — has emerged from beta with a new look and a new business model . While the site is growing rapidly — now with 4.8 million unique monthly visitors — it’s still running to catch up.
Changing the way it brings in revenue, the company has introduced DocCash, a program that will split… Continue Reading
Scribd raises $9 million, hires new president for social publishing
Social publishing firm Scribd is announcing today that it has raised $9 million in a second round of funding and has hired George Consagra, former chief operating officer of Bebo, as its president.
The San Francisco-based company lets people share and publish original writings on its web site. It has more than 50 million readers each month, and more than 50,000 new writings and documents are uploaded daily.
This round of financing was led by Charles River… Continue Reading
Roundup: Facebook movie casting, Yahoo shuts down Mash, and more
The Facebook Movie has a very unofficial casting call — Yesterday, top Hollywood screenwriter Aaron Sorkin let it be known he was working on a movie about the high-flying social network. Here’s a (rather entertaining) formulation of which actor might play which geek role. Yes, Michael Cera (a co-star in Juno) would be Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. [Michael Cera image via Radar Online.]
Linux rises to 13.4 percent of the server market — CNET’s Matt Asay examines the… Continue Reading
Zoho adds document sharing to its growing lineup
Zoho, a company that offers a growing variety of cheap and free online office applications, just launched Zoho Share, a service for sharing documents on the web or within your company.
Now, all documents, presentations, spreadsheets and PDFs created using Zoho Apps can be viewed as an embeddable file, similar to Scribd or Docstoc. Those documents can be shared publicly, or just internally, as with Microsoft’s Sharepoint. (Which is why Zoho calls the service “Sharepoint meets… Continue Reading
Roundup: Farber takes over at CNET, Mozilla’s new email subsidiary, Scribd iPaper, and more
Here’s the latest action:
1) Dan Farber takes the helm at CNET
2) Mozilla launches email-focused subsidiary
3) Scribd creates iPaper, an Acrobat competitor
4) Hewlett-Packard has great first quarter
5) Tesla Motors pulls in another $40M
6) Verizon, AT&T unveil new unlimited wireless plans
7) Oligarchs, proletariat run amok in Silicon Valley
Scientists suck up CO2 to make alternative fuel
Dan Farber takes the helm at CNET — One familiar figure is stepping aside for another at CNET, where long-time editor-in-chief Jai Singh… Continue Reading
Scribd woos publishers, schools
Update
Scribd, the fast-growing site that lets you post documents online, has launched two free programs, one to let high-volume publishers organize and market their content, and another to allow educational institutions to store and share information securely online.
The company, which calls itself the “YouTube for documents,” says it has over 4 billion words contributed and 10 million unique visitors per month. See our earlier coverage here. With competition sprouting up (DocStoc, divShare, TheCollegeFreeway), this move… Continue Reading
DivShare adds document viewer, takes on Scribd
DivShare, one of the best in the ever expanding mass of mostly undifferentiated file hosting and sharing services, has just added a flash-based document viewer to its offerings, which include photo slideshow, video, and music players.
Like that of Scribd and SlideShare, DivShare’s document viewer lets you upload Word, PowerPoint, Excel and PDF files, embed them anywhere, and read them without having to download anything.
Standing alone, this is nothing new, but combined with its other flash… Continue Reading
Docstoc, the “YouTube for professional documents,” raises cash
Docstoc, the company that describes itself as the “YouTube for professional documents” has closed a small first round of financing.
Docstoc, along with competitor Scribd, makes it easy for people to upload and post entire documents on the Web — where they can be easily read without clicking on links.
The companies have stirred controversy because of the potential for copyright infringement. Scribd, which launched earlier this year (see coverage), and which is open to the public,… Continue Reading
Roundup: Google phone, Bancrofts bought off?, Yelp, Docstoc, Bittorrent & more
Here’s the latest action:
Google phone details — Google’s Eric Schmidt had said Google wasn’t releasing a Google Phone, but the WSJ has the latest details about its significant action in the phone area nonetheless. Namely, it is working with other manufacturers.
Yahoo executive Daniel Rosensweig joins Quadrangle Group, a private equity firm — The former Yahoo operating chief will join the New York firm and help it on media, tech and communications investments. More here. Quadrangle’s investments include… Continue Reading
Scribd raises $3.7M, amid lots of interest
San-Francisco-based Scribd, the so-called “YouTube for documents,” has attracted a lot of attention — including plenty of suitors from Silicon Valley’s venture capital firms.
So it comes as no surprise that, shortly after launch, it has raised $3.7 million from Redpoint and original seed investor Kinsey Hills Group. Co-founder Trip Alder wouldn’t disclose precise valuation the investors placed on Scribd, but did say the rumored $17.5 million post-money valuation is just about right.
The round closed a… Continue Reading
Roundup: Scribd hype, Stockpickr, Red Herring, Cozmo and lots more
Here’s the latest action:
Scribd hype — Maybe because it calls itself the “YouTube for documents,” the young Scribd is getting a lot of interest from Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists. We’ve talked to some eager to invest. Rumors are leaking out, including at Gigaom and Techcrunch that the round is almost done, with GigaOm saying it is done and citing a large $10 million valuation. We talked with Scribd’s Trip Adler today, and he didn’t want to say… Continue Reading
Scribd, the “YouTube for documents,” copyright violations and all
Updated
Scribd, the new Silicon Valley company pitching itself as the “Youtube for documents” is getting some good traction, in part because it hosts copyrighted material.
Scribd launched three weeks ago, and is attracting 100,000 unique visitors a day. Those are the viewers. Far fewer have signed up to upload documents — about 10,000 users have uploaded 13,000 documents.
Why, we asked initially, are people coming to a site to post documents, when all they have to do… Continue Reading