Openfloodgate, like Scribd, lets content creators publish their works to the web, but with decidedly more control. The site is the project of Tina Seelig, Executive Director of Stanford Technology Venture Partners and Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship. Recently released from beta about two weeks ago, OpenFloodgate currently features a variety of stories, poems, lyrics, photos, recipes, etc, uploaded by the site’s users. Once uploaded, each work can then be rated, downloaded as a pdf, and commented on by other users.
OpenFloodgate provides more control than other publishing sites. First, the site allows publishers to limit who can see their work to a group or just yourself. Also, unlike other document sharing sites, OpenFloodgate publishes every work as series of image files or PDFs, making it harder to plagiarize the author’s content. This puts OpenFloodgate, and sites like it, in a better position to handle the copyright woes that come along with user generated content and also eventually charge for the content down the road.
How can I get in touch with the founder? There is something I have been thinking about that this would be perfect for. thx.
Karen, My suggestion would be to use the contact form on the site. http://openfloo...com/contact.htm
I fail to see how this is better than scribd, which is also deadpool material?
Deadpool here you come…
Who knows anymore, I don’t see it exactly exploding in popularity but it seems like a great idea. Not that it’s terribly tough to take PDFs and convert them, but it does give it an extra step and probably keeps the content looking nice as well.
For anew company like this they might want to go more classic 2.0 look though than Sand or whatever font that is.
This site is designed to open to the path to publication to serious writers and artists. Currently there are so many gates between the creator and the marketplace. Agents get thousands of manuscripts a year and only 10% of them are sold to publishers. Also, there is a lot of high quality work that isn’t in an easily publishable format: stories, articles, poems, recipes, scripts, drawings, photos. There is a lot of great material that doesn’t see the light of day. We welcome all comments and suggestions! Feel free to contact me at tina@openfloodgate.com
The domain name isn’t a very good one. So not Web2.0!
Maybe they want to buy my domain flobox.com? Contact me
Tina is one of the brightest people I’ve seen. This should go far. It’d certainly help for my upcoming book.
I agree with Eric. Tina, and the entity she has created, are powerful resources.
I am a colleague of Tina Seelig’s on the faculty at Stanford.
When she showed me the site I immediately saw the value to numerous people I know who have created material that they want to share with others, but don’t have the patience or resources to engage an agent and navigate the labyrinth of professional publishing. What e-bay did for people with treasures in their attics and garages, Open Floodgate will do for writers and artists with treasures on their hard drives.
As to the fact that the UI is “so not web 2.0,” that is part of the site’s charm. Believe it or not, the entire world need not conform to the current fashion of web 2.0 affictionados.
“de gustibus non est diputandem” Roughly translated is “There is no dispute concerning taste” or “each to her own taste.” Open Floodgate is a great resource for a very large segment of amateur or aspiring professional writers and artists.
Tina is a superstar member of the Stanford faculty and she has done an enormous amount to encourage and educate students about entrepreneurship through her work with the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. For those of you that have met her, she is full of energy and I know that she is very passionate about OpenFloodgate and the problem that the site is tackling, namely the inability for new writers to gain visibility for their works. When I write a book, I know where I’ll go for help
This site looks tailor-made for writer’s groups and workshops. I can create a private club for group / workshop participants that allows works to be posted, reviewed, and commented upon without having to open this up to the general public. Once the work is considered complete it can be made public and shared more broadly. I love it!
Hey, this might be a solution to my problem. I’m trying to create a writer’s group online, and we want a way to share our work, give feedback to each other, but also keep the material private to the outside world…thanks for the article!