Scribd. This appears to be social software for the huge population of people who can’t imagine creating anything without using Word.
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Scribd. This appears to be social software for the huge population of people who can’t imagine creating anything without using Word.
From their website:
"Scribd's mission is to create the world's largest open library of documents."
After scanning through some of the available documents, my question is why?
Superficially, maybe, but I think it has merit as
(1) a tool for people who've got stuff they want to share that they've sadly written in something other than html, and no time (or no skill) to convert it into a more web friendly format for the sake of publishing it.
and
(2) a way to emerge and classify the gems in that morass of content by reader interaction.
If scribd can now provide tools that
(3) allow users to convert these oldskool documents into more web-friendly formats (ie searchable, editable and remixable)
then they've got real potential I think.
I've only had a brief look at it so far, but I remembered this post from you and thought I'd come back and leave my thoughts.
This site will be a godsend for the zillions of people who need to process text but would prefer to listen rather than read - people with visual impairments, dyslexia, auditory learners etc.
The fact that it's free and requires little more than a connection to the web is pretty fantastic, no?
Enda P - 3rd May 2007 20:53 - #