Scribd bills itself as the largest social publishing website in the world or as the new youtube for printed documents. The online platform is a vast repository of original text, font, and color formatted docs that professionals and amateurs upload for all to access. At first glance, scribd seems a lot more professional than most of the videos I've seen on youtube. Maybe that's because when people create documents for people to actually read they put more thought into it than a 30 second video of their kid climbing a tree. But seriously, I am impressed with the quality of work America hands in.
The categories that scribd has for you to explore are comprehensive and say something about the sheer volume of submissions: books, brochures & catalogs, business & law, creative writing, how-to-guides & manuals, illustrations & maps, newspapers & magazines, presentations & spreadsheets, puzzles & games, recipes & menus, research, resumes & CVs, schoolwork, and sheet music & lyrics.
Once you sign up and create an account on scribd you may upload as many documents in as many formats as you would like (that means free unlimited storage). Scribd has an easy-to-use iPaper Document Reader that will take pdfs, microsoft office suite, open office suite and post them in their full original glory immediately. And you'll find a whole attic full of good stuff: powerpoint presentations, excel spreadsheets, resumes, school projects, poems, short stories, recipes, government documents, research papers, funny artwork, and free online magazine articles and books.
The really cool thing about scribd is that you get the full web diagnostics on who is actually looking at your original content. Once you've uploaded your docs you can add descriptions, categories, and tags to enhance the website searches for your content. Then, you can manage all your uploaded docs from the My Docs section and get updated information on how many views you have received. A subsection called Traffic Analytics breaks down the search engine queries that called up your docs, the search engines that have listed your docs, and a world map of users that have viewed your docs. All really cool functions for any aspiring web authors out there.
In conclusion, scribd is an instant and obvious browser bookmark. The latest web 2.0 website that goes all retro and allows us to publish and share the printed word. There is so much content on the site that everyone is bound to find something they'll like and probably a like-minded group that preselects good content.
So get started and publish that dusty old manuscript so you may let it live eternally on a quality website rather than die alone in notebook way back in your closet. Better yet, post all those old school assignments that you slaved over for years when you were at school. Might as well let these intellectual artifacts loose upon the world and let insight flourish from your academic labors.
So enjoy the website, but it can only get better if you upload too.
