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July 8, 2007

Competition For Scribd

Michael Arrington

70 comments »

Scribd, dubbed “YouTube for documents” didn’t have the the traditional dip in traffic after its launch, and has continued to grow rapidly after raising nearly $4 million in two rounds of venture capital.

I looks like they already have competition, though. I’ve been hearing good things about new startup Docstoc, which is currently in private beta. I haven’t been able to get in and see the service, but others that have are telling me its pretty cool. The video above shows an early interface, which I grabbed from the Docstoc blog.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 8th, 2007 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Matt Harwood

    July 8th, 2007 at 2:06 pm

    Am I hearing things or did he say due for launch in 2000?

    Looks nice though, scribd does a job also IMO.

  2. ChandraB

    July 8th, 2007 at 2:14 pm

    Wow…I’m surprised it took someone this long to create a Scribd clone. The barriers to entry are not high for a knowledgeable programming team. The barriers might even drop if we start seeing $99 “YouTube-for-Docs” PHP Scripts. Such scripts exist for those who want to clone: MySpace, YouTube, eBay etc.

    Lets see Scribd get a run for it’s money…I’m still curious about a business model though.

  3. Michael Arrington

    July 8th, 2007 at 2:19 pm

    yeah, i heard the “2000″ thing too. clearly an error.

  4. mike

    July 8th, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    I think that this is the best of them all: http://www.thinkfreedocs.com/

  5. Thierry

    July 8th, 2007 at 2:55 pm

    …
    feature fatigue anyone?

  6. Ewan

    July 8th, 2007 at 3:13 pm

    I think http://www.edocr.com/ looks quite interesting, but it’s in private beta too unfortunately

  7. vdvd

    July 8th, 2007 at 3:27 pm

    Cool

  8. david8

    July 8th, 2007 at 3:47 pm

    I’ve got to agree with Mike @ #4 that the thinkfree sites do a nicer job than scribd. I posted a smallish spreadsheet to scribd which required using the scroll bars and it looked like CRAP! It remained beautiful in thinkfree.

    Of course, Scribd has other fine uses which we won’t dwell on….

  9. L

    July 8th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    It is kind of curious that they are using Asp.Net also known as expensive Microsoft stack. I wonder if that raises their cost per document. What do you guys think of that decision?

  10. Jason Nazar

    July 8th, 2007 at 3:50 pm

    Mike you’re welcome to check out the site whenever you like. Yah, I think I confused a bunch of people, including my partners, when I said April “2000″ in the video - my bad.

    FYI, the UI has completely changed since the video was posted. And we’ve added a bunch more features. I actually started working on this in November of 2006 but I was finishing up my last year of grad school so it’s been taking a bit longer than I hoped.

    Thanks all for the comments, either positive or constructive, their most welcomed.

  11. Stan Oleynick

    July 8th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    Scribd has the first mover advantage and they are already venture funded. If they continue to improve their service, innovate and stay ahead of competition, they should be just fine!

    I think that Scribd is a good acquisition target for Google, because if you will remember, Google’s motto is organize the world’s information… and Scribd does that for documents and there is a demand for that as evidenced by their success, any thoughts?

  12. David Ciccarelli

    July 8th, 2007 at 4:12 pm

    I thoroughly enjoy Scribd from both a business and personal perspective. One afternoon, I took the liberty to upload a “how to” document to Scribd that to my surprise was downloaded over 1200 times in the first month. Who knew?

  13. Jocelyn

    July 8th, 2007 at 4:25 pm

    I don’t love Scribd at all so I’m very much looking forward to what looks like some heavy-hitting competition from Docstoc!

  14. Danielle

    July 8th, 2007 at 4:42 pm

    I like the design - I’m looking forward to seeing what Docstoc is all about.

  15. Nadroj

    July 8th, 2007 at 4:48 pm

    Docstoc looks great, I will definitely use it when it becomes publicly available. I have not had the best luck with Scribd and Docstoc looks a lot more user friendly. I like all the features so far and I am looking forward to seeing what’s new.

  16. Marc

    July 8th, 2007 at 4:48 pm

    i received a password to the password protected beta site and have been playing around with it for a few weeks. docstoc has awesome features and has provided me both with valuable documents (for work) and other interesting ones to read. so far i am impressed with the site, job very well done docstoc!!!

  17. Aaron Schiff

    July 8th, 2007 at 4:54 pm

    I also received a private beta. I liked the website a lot, however my one qualm was that you needed javascript for some of the functions. After i enabled J/s though everything was great. I just hope that in the first release they make those features w/o relying on j/s. Not sure if thats possible however.

    Nice job Jason. Its cool that you’re on the forums. Best of luck to you!

  18. Cristian

    July 8th, 2007 at 5:00 pm

    I’ve been playing around the site also after receiving the private beta, and I think that the user interface is better than the similar sites out there right now. It’s really easy to use and I think it’s got great potential for all types of users. I’m looking forward to it being launched.

  19. Zach

    July 8th, 2007 at 5:31 pm

    I’ve seen this product and it’s really great. Scribd may be the leader, but all it takes is some innovation and an overall better prodcut, and we’ll begin to see a shift in popularity. We’re seeing a similar shift from MySpace to Facebook right now. DocStoc’s utility far outdoes that of Scribd. Plain and simple. Just wait and see…

  20. Bobby

    July 8th, 2007 at 5:38 pm

    I have used doc stock, scribd, and thinkfree, and docstoc is clearly the most user friendly of them all. Also, docstoc seems to have a lot more business docs (contracts, leases, etc.) than the other two sites, which is great for young entrepreneurs and small business owners.

  21. Tim

    July 8th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

    I know these guys, great team.

    Look for some really exciting stuff to come in the future!

    I also have checked out the beta. And while I am obviously biased, I think you will all agree that it is a great site.

    I am just jazzed to see some friends of mine on TechCrunch.

    Way to go DocStoc!!

  22. Joseph

    July 8th, 2007 at 6:08 pm

    I have used both Scribd and the beta version of DocStoc and really look forward to DocStoc’s launch. The idea is certianly the same, but DocStocs implementation is far superior. Well done and I look forward to the launch.

  23. bdb

    July 8th, 2007 at 6:09 pm

    Ra Ra-SIS BUM BA-Yaaaaaah Docstoc!

    Sorry, I thought I would pretend to be another biased buddy boasting about this site.

  24. Zaid

    July 8th, 2007 at 6:29 pm

    #23
    At least it’s not as bad as Foldera:) These comments seem from unique people instead of a single robot. Plus some of ‘em have links to their names and acknowledge knowing the founders. Nothing much wrong with that.

  25. Free Dating Site

    July 8th, 2007 at 6:59 pm

    Looks very nice and easy but it’s in beta mode. Let’s wait and watch how popular this gets.

  26. gleib

    July 8th, 2007 at 7:36 pm

    docstoc seems better to me than scribd. i like all the features and the name is way better. no one hearing scribd will know how to spell it. docstoc is a great name, it looks clean, and i think i will use it for my documents over the competition.

  27. Roy

    July 8th, 2007 at 7:50 pm

    congrats Marc! You have a great product and nice to see it reviewed here.

  28. Ira

    July 8th, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    I think docstoc is great! As a student, I can relate to the desire to share documents as well as benefit from others sharing their documents. I can’t wait for docstoc to launch!

  29. Zach

    July 8th, 2007 at 8:47 pm

    The site rocks. I have been playing around with the beta for sometime now. The design is intuitive and easy to use. I look forward to the launch.

  30. Jason

    July 8th, 2007 at 8:51 pm

    I have also seen DocStoc, and it works great. I know it will do awesome! They will keep Scribd on their feet because what they’ve got going on is pretty innovative.

  31. Creation Destruction.

    July 8th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

    Prophecy once foretold if Yahoo or Google or any companies brought Youtube doc. The stockmarket drop down $ -145.33 a shares and then crashed. Many investors fear, cried and pulling their hairs at wall street.

    Some people predicted that some countries don’t support free of press — Socialist, Communist, etc… They disagree with content.

    For example, Looking back history like World war 1, 2, and modern post war. They don’t accept propaganda.

    I always through Scribd could be next billion dollar youtube. But, I check out… Something went wrong with great technology.

  32. ZDub

    July 8th, 2007 at 9:21 pm

    Definitely a very user-friendly site. Very useful.

  33. How to pass English Exam?

    July 8th, 2007 at 9:38 pm

    download scribd and hand it over to your professor….

    What’s stockmarket share for scribd?

  34. How to cheat state exam for professors

    July 8th, 2007 at 9:49 pm

    Oh yeah…
    How to catch toughest professors from cheating real exams?

    http://www.scribd.com/search?query=professor+exam
    http://www.scribd.com/search?q.....sor+manual
    http://www.scribd.com/search?q.....exam+cheat

    I know some profesors do cheat and make failing students as pig money… :). I remember getting scammed once or twice.

  35. Here professor's cheat exam

    July 8th, 2007 at 9:55 pm

    Just like Enron, watergate, and other scandals…. I remember getting scammed once and twice as computer major student.
    Somehow, I caught these online.

    Here…
    http://www.scribd.com/search?p.....essor+exam
    http://www.scribd.com/search?p.....sor+manual
    http://www.scribd.com/search?p.....ssor+cheat

  36. Drama 2.0

    July 8th, 2007 at 10:54 pm

    What a surprise. When investors pour money into a startup with a simple concept and absolutely no defensible technology, the clones aren’t far behind.

  37. Dan

    July 8th, 2007 at 11:43 pm

    great site, great inerface, great features, great experience … docstoc is one cool web2.0 site.

    It would be interesting to see the competition between scribd and docstoc once it goes live… i can feel the heat already…. ;)

    docstoc has got everything what you would want from a doc exchange site … the bad part is .. they have the same “flashpaper” to get the docs previewed… so the Excel sheet would be distorted… but hey, i still like the site…

  38. Grace

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:38 am

    Site looks okay, however, what does it really offer above-and-beyond Scribd’s service offerings? Alternatively, I found this site called http://www.gazhoo.com which offers a marketplace platform for documents. I think the inherrent incentive system with a marketplace may prove to be the real challenge for Scribd. And there are other sites that offer marketplace platforms for other content.

  39. Thilak

    July 9th, 2007 at 5:00 am

    I was expecting Google to introduce something like Scribd. The already have the Google Docs platform, they just need to make it sharable. Talking about Scribd’s success, I guess, they should thank pirates who upload copyright infringed books.

  40. AMedovoi

    July 9th, 2007 at 7:55 am

    I’ve had the opportunity to check out Docstoc BETA. It will provide unique features (with plans for many more) and carve out an independent niche for itself; hitting the ground running on its launch. Barriers to entry are not huge but it does require significant funds and a team with determination to put together such an undertaking…all of which Docstoc now has The marketplace is large enough for multiple companies to coexist successfully and docstoc will ultimately be #1 IMHO.

  41. Tlev

    July 9th, 2007 at 8:38 am

    After using docstoc beta and scribd, it is clear to me that docstoc’s site provides a better set of features to easily navigate and find a relevant document. It also seems that it will be able to encourage more interaction both between users and between users and providers of content, leading to a more robust learning and sharing community - which I believe is important for the longevity and strength of such a site.

  42. bruce smith

    July 9th, 2007 at 9:34 am

    whatever dood…its the same thing…come up with something different like grace said above.

  43. deborah

    July 9th, 2007 at 9:56 am

    I was able to find a lot of relevant documents for what I were looking for - and it was really fast and easy

  44. Jeffrey McManus

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:04 am

    @L: We use ASP.NET for Approver.com which is competitive with Scribr. Approver.com focuses more on providing a secure place for document collaboration — Scribr appears to be focusing on promiscuous publishing. We think there’s a place for both (which is why we have publishing features too).

    Windows/.NET actually adds very little (a few hundred bucks) to the cost per server. What we lose in licensing fees we more than make up for in developer productivity.

    The big cost for public sites that use the full Microsoft stack is in the database ($6K/server) which we sidestep by not using Microsoft’s database.

  45. Jeffrey McManus

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:04 am

    Uck. Scribr. Scribd. Whatever.

  46. Josh

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:05 am

    Docstoc is a great site, i just uploaded a couple of documents about marketing and was able to grab a great doc on a partnership agreement for a friend. i cant wait till it goes live and i can have access to everyones work and they can have access to mine. plus a bunch of years of college essays i will be sure to upload.

  47. Jonas

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:05 am

    docstoc looks like its much more user-friendly and allows more interaction between users to exchange information. Its also a much better site for professional contracts and leases than scribd. I cant wait till its ready for the go-ahead!

  48. geri

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:15 am

    doctoc is seriously the best idea ever!! im obsessed!!

  49. Michal

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:40 am

    love the site- very user friendly!

  50. Michelle

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:41 am

    i know that scribd and docstoc are based on the same idea, however, docstoc’s site was much more user-friendly. also it appealed more to the eye…..better layout, interface, etc.

    that’s how competition works….whoever can make the idea better is the one who will win….at this point i think docstoc is ahead.

  51. Iruz

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:42 am

    My company had asked me to create a bunch of document templates for our accounting, and instead of wasting the afternoon creating the templates I got a password for docstoc and was able to download them all. It took me about 20 minutes to personalize them all to my company and everyone was very impressed with my work. LOVE IT!

  52. Adam

    July 9th, 2007 at 11:25 am

    With my computer crashing as it does, would be great to know I’ve got a copy of my files most important to me, and well organized. Looks great DocStoc.

  53. Cindy

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:13 pm

    I like the fact that docstoc is geared toward professional / business / educational needs. The info on Scribd is too random.

  54. Aalok Sikand

    July 9th, 2007 at 1:22 pm

    DocStoc clearly has points of differentiation over its competitor Scribd. I’ll just mention two reasons: user-friendly interface and useful documents. I did a search for two documents on both Scribd and DocStoc. The first search was for “leases” since I needed a revised one for one of my clients. Scribd’s first choice was something called “Adam Lease”. There was no preview of the document and in fact, Adam Lease was just the name of some user. On DocStoc however, “leases” returned over 100 relevant documents related to leases. In fact, one of the “Termination of Lease” documents proved to be very helpful for my client.

    The second search I did was for “law school outlines.” A friend of mine asked me for a law school outline for a Contracts class. I unfortunately deleted mine a couple of years ago, but was able to find one for her easily on DocStoc. Scribd only had one torts outline whereas DocStoc literally had hundreds of different outlines to choose from. I wish I had such a resource when I was still in grad school!

    Clearly, after using both Scribd and DocStoc, I think DocStoc is the one-stop shop for both grad students and entrepreneurs. Grad Students can easily find helpful resources from previous alumni and entrepreneurs can find relevant legal documents, marketing plans and contracts to use as templates for their businesses. Thank you DocStoc.

  55. Web 2 point oh

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

    Seriously docstoc how much did you pay / bribe your users to hijack this post and talk about how obsessed they are with docstock and how much ‘better’ it is than scribd.

    It will be interesting to see how ‘amazing’ the interface is, as if it isn’t this post will be referred to and you will look silly!

    Don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fake comments about one company!

  56. Nehama

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:38 pm

    I looked at the web site and it easy to use and very intersting !

  57. Darren

    July 9th, 2007 at 11:53 pm

    Docstoc has many features that will be a great help to me any my business. Can’t wait for it to go online.

  58. Budda

    July 10th, 2007 at 3:25 am

    The concept is the same as Scribd, yet everybody seems to love DocStoc! Seems like a big change from the comments on the Scribd post earlier this year.

  59. Ryan

    July 11th, 2007 at 11:05 am

    I chose docstoc after trying these new sites. I am beginning my next business and want more reliable documents from which to work. I tried scribd, but was disappointed in their selection of business docs…so I found my way over the thinkfree and docstoc, and tried them. Found that docstoc had the best selection and easiest navigation. I hope docstoc comes out of beta soon so we can all use it.

  60. Sergey Lvov

    July 11th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

    I’ve played with the docstock’s beta and find it more easy to use then scribd, though it needs to be polished a little bit more - font are too big IMHO. I’ll defenetely switch to it once it goes stops being beta, since it’s much much better then scribd.

  61. Bruce

    July 12th, 2007 at 4:34 am

    Anybody notice that the guys from docstoc seem to have typed a lot of these comments up here??!! haha.

  62. rudy

    July 14th, 2007 at 12:16 am

    Call it paid publicity, or authentic excited users…. it has definitely made me interested in the site… can some one gimme the beta password please…

  63. Toni D.

    July 30th, 2007 at 7:39 pm

    LitCentral has a similar product specifically targeting the entertainment industry. They allow script writers to collaborate on writing scripts.

    http://www.bizorigin.com/2007/.....work-done/

  64. Tony

    July 31st, 2007 at 10:08 am

    I tihnk this one beats everything. You can actually earn money here by uploading your documents. http://www.gazhoo.com

  65. Renish Ladani

    August 4th, 2007 at 3:16 am

    I found Scribd better than docstoc, Scribd has applied web 2.0 in very well.

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