
Scribd launches new platform and iPaper - naish
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/scribd_launches_new_platform_and_ipaper.php
======
gojomo
Kinda funny how Scribd is using one Adobe platform -- Flash (esp. FlashPlayer)
-- to chip away at another Adobe Platform -- PDF (Adobe Reader and Acrobat).

I used to dislike both Flash plug-in launches and PDF Reader launches equally.
Now, the combination of Adobe's work on making the Flash Player launch faster
(helped along by the format's ubiquity -- it's probably already running in
another tab), plus FlashBlock, means Flash is much less annoying than PDF.

So: bravo, Scribd, for marginalizing PDF even further.

~~~
atoulouse
I wouldn't applaud them for marginalizing PDF so much as applaud them for
providing a better alternative for online content. OS X's support for PDF is
phenomenal, and Foxit's launchtime on Windows is lightning fast. I can't speak
for Linux (as I haven't opened a PDF on linux in some time), but I agree that
where embedded content is concerned, PDF's browser integration is terrible
across the board.

------
jimbokun
Reading the description, my thought process was "So don't we already have pdf
and Acrobat for that?"

Looking at the actual demo, my thought process was "Wow, Acrobat really
sucks."

------
gibsonf1
This is really impressive - if only they could add .eml and .msg files to the
mix of supported files! :)

------
zandorg
The PDF with ads didn't show any ads on my system.

I'm not sure what iPaper is all about, other than making my web browser view
documents slower. iMyReinventedWheel sounds more like it (that's a joke).

~~~
sharpshoot
You sound like you never used macromedia flash paper. Scribd have just
unlocked all the value in documents, rewritten an adobe product in 6 months
which sucked, and done a deal with google to monetize them.

I guess the ads would depend upon what you uploaded.

~~~
zandorg
What I meant about the ads was that the example from that link didn't show
any.

As for Flash Paper, I didn't know about it, but reading up on it, it sounds
like Scribd have a good API going.

One point is that they recently got sued for putting up books, etc. My gripe
is that Word documents can be put on the web as HTML, so I don't see the need
for a centralised repository (Scribd) when the Web suffices (decentralised).

~~~
jamiequint
uh, actually this makes it easier to be decentralized, since it allows you to
put a word document in iPaper on your own site (and looks a hell of a lot
better than .doc -> HTML)

------
Readmore
Very nice guys! Scribd is my favorite company to come out of yCombinator. I
think you guys have really done some great stuff, and you use Rails, which
just makes it better!

------
pius
This isn't meant as a troll, but what exactly is the difference between this
and FlashPaper?

~~~
jawngee
They're using flashpaper on the backend I believe. Or possibly print2flash,
which is what we use for uploaded screenplays at massify.com.

~~~
snowmaker
As a matter of fact, we're not. We built iPaper starting from scratch because
there wasn't anything good enough to build it on top of. Both FlashPaper and
Print2Flash are Windows print drivers designed as consumer applications. They
were never intended for something like Scribd that processes millions of
documents. The iPaper back-end is built for web-scale use.

~~~
jawngee
I'm not trolling, just genuinely curious: How do you support
word/excel/powerpoint 100% if you're not printing from the app themselves?

Also, for the developer API, do you add advertising to the documents you
convert? Are you approachable about private licensing?

------
vegashacker
I think I'm actually going to use this on my site...

Very cool!

------
hooande
Way to go Scribd! I think this one is going to be big, guys

------
boucher
People really shouldn't lie outright in marketing materials:

iPaper Requires Download: No iPaper Requires Installation: No

Last time I checked, Flash was still a plugin, not a built in feature of the
web. I'm just as likely to not have flash on my system as a PDF reader.

Cost to create documents is perhaps the most misleading:

iPaper: Free, PDF: $299, Office: $150

There are a billion ways to create PDFs for free, including built in support
in every application in Mac OS X. There are also free ways to create office
compatible formats.

Most of the rest of this is distasteful, but less of an outright lie.
Certainly PDFs can be embedded as links, not to mention, there are ways to
embed on the page itself, with the supporting plugins. "Size of the
application" is silly, given that you download Acrobat Reader once (and pretty
much everyone has it), instead of downloading iPaper on every page load. Of
course, again, Mac OS X has this all built in.

~~~
zaidf
1\. Actually this shows that practical people, not lawyers, wrote the product
description. Flash's widespread adoption means that a vast majority of
Internet users don't have to install anything to use iPaper.
[http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/vers...](http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html)

2\. There are tools for free to create PDFs, just as there are tools to do
almost everything for free versus its paid alternative. That does not mean
iPaper has to compete with the free tools. They are competing with Adobe
Acrobat which remains a paid application.

~~~
boucher
"Flash's widespread adoption means that a vast majority of Internet users
don't have to install anything to use iPaper"

I could argue the exact same thing about PDF. Although Adobe does not seem to
have published adoption statistics, I would bet that they roughly equal that
of flash. Not to mention, I haven't come across a computer that didn't
understand PDF files in many years. Beyond the obvious distrust of statistics
coming directly from Adobe, there are new platforms, like the iPhone, where
flash is not even available, and PDF is.

"There are tools for free to create PDFs, just as there are tools to do almost
everything for free versus its paid alternative. That does not mean iPaper has
to compete with the free tools. They are competing with Adobe Acrobat which
remains a paid application."

They are competing with Acrobat Reader, which is a free application. This is
not a tool for generating documents, its a tool for viewing/embedding them.
That's why you have to create PDF, DOC, TXT etc. to get anything into iPaper
in the first place.

~~~
zaidf
Scribd takes that into account by stating PDF "sometimes" requires download. I
think that is fair--most marketers would just say "yes" instead of
"sometimes."

Also, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume the penetration of Flash as greater
than Acrobat Reader.

"This is not a tool for generating documents, its a tool for viewing/embedding
them."

Let's back up to the original goal of PDF: fixed-layout document sharing with
built-in security. To generate PDF files, Adobe SELLS Acrobat to general PDF
files.

iPaper seems to be a) implementing the original goal of PDF, b) with better
usability, and c) with no cost to convert.

~~~
tolmasky
How are they beating PDF on cost? Acrobat Reader is free, and they don't put
ads in there.

On top of that, they say that the cost of creating documents is "free". What?
Are they handing out free Word licenses with this thing or something? Because
last time I checked, the price of creating a document for iPaper is the cost
of the program that makes the original document for iPaper. As you stated
yourself, "converting" to iPaper is free. So yeah, if all your documents are
TXT files then this thing is free, but if you want any semblance of structure
in your document then you're probably using... you guessed it, DOC or PDF.
There are plenty of free PDF converters out there (plugins for Word, built-in
support in Mac OS X, standalone programs, etc etc). So I think at best iPaper
is even with PDF in this regard.

Tangentially, PDF is not "bulky and painful". It just happens that Acrobat
Reader is a ridiculously awful reader. Mac OS X handles PDFs like a breeze,
they feel incredibly light weight as they open instantly and any application
can output to them. So I whole-heartedly agree that Reader is a _bad_ program,
but don't extrapolate that to the format.

~~~
zaidf
Usability is one of Scribd's biggest selling points, which might resonate more
with PC users long tired of Reader's unstability.

Technically PDF as a format might rock, but most users just care about how
their experience is. People's idea of PDF is attached to their experience with
Acrobat Reader.

------
schoudha
Super sick.

I still wonder though, is the trend to share information through PDF style
formats or to convert it to true HTML.

------
merrick33
Anyone know how you would go about creating such a player?

Also curious if anyone knows if docstoc and pdfmenot are simply using
flashpaper or a customer player like scribd.

------
selky
I love the demo but my small 4mg PDF which I converted to ipaper runs really
slow on my site.

------
tocomment
A little late to the party, right (<http://pdfmenot.com/>)

~~~
aneesh
not really, iPaper has lots of little features pdfmenot misses, incl zoom and
scrolling.

~~~
boucher
except, pdfmenot has zooming and scrolling. how could you have a pdf reader
without scrolling?

------
brk
Cool idea, but, "iPaper"?... They couldn't come up with a more creative name
for it?

~~~
tikhon
it was nearly "Scribd Viewer". So, no. :-)

