« Previous post
Next post »

October 30, 2007

Docstoc Opens For Business (Documents)

Erick Schonfeld

25 comments »

doctsoc-logo.pngWant to share some of those secret company files with the world? Starting today, you can upload them to Docstoc and share them in an embeddable Flash player. Actually, the service is more for standard business documents like leases, employment agreements, non-disclosure agreements, wills and the like.
Docstoc is designed to be a shared repository of commonly used forms and documents. (I embedded the press release of Docstoc’s public launch below in a DocStoc player). Docstoc competes with Scribd and is a TechCrunch40 company.

Today, Docstoc is coming out of its private beta into a public beta. Anyone can now upload and share documents. Already, there are 12,000 documents on the site. There is no limit to how many you can upload, and Docstoc accepts the following file formats: .doc, .xls, .ppt, .rft, and .pdf. To encourage people to try out the service, Docstoc is running a contest. Every week in November, the user who uploads the most professional documents (random filler doesn’t count) will get an iPod Touch. To qualify, users must (1) be registered members (join here), (2) upload documents that are publicly shared and (3) the uploaded documents must benefit the community. For a full set of rules click here

Winners will be announced each Sunday at 12:00am PST on the Docstoc blog. Users can see how they are doing in the contest, in real time, by visiting the docsters page and clicking on “most docs this week”

Here is the press release in a Docstoc:

Here are some screen shots:docstoc-screenshot.png

docstoc-screenshot-3.png

CrunchBase Information
Docstoc
Scribd
Information provided by CrunchBase
  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 8:30 am 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.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. DocStoc may prove useful at Ghost of Midnight

    October 30th, 2007 at 9:09 am

  2. DocStoc may prove useful at Ghost of Midnight

    October 30th, 2007 at 9:11 am

  3. Web 2.0 Sammelalbum - Web2Null - .docstoc

    October 31st, 2007 at 7:04 am

  4. Stiri scurte din tehnologie si net (31-10-2007) | CTI97:=(Creativitate,Tehnologie,Informatie)

    October 31st, 2007 at 7:37 am

  5. TechCoast Review

    November 26th, 2007 at 2:22 pm

  6. emonome | I Am Docster

    March 10th, 2008 at 11:53 pm

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. Ben Werdmuller

    October 30th, 2007 at 8:37 am

    Potentially a great idea, but a lot of these are legal documents - what assurance do we have that they’re good, and do users who upload have any protection from people who might sue them if they don’t work as planned?

  2. John

    October 30th, 2007 at 9:19 am

    Ben, pretty sure that would be a non-issue, even in today’s litigious society that’s a real stretch.

  3. Jason M. Lemkin

    October 30th, 2007 at 9:27 am

    There are no assurances, but forms in general are a big business. There are attorney-reviewed forms for which you generally pay $$$ for, and non-attorney reviewed forms for which you often don’t. The thesis is that the wisdom of crowds will help with non-attorney forms, which probably originated with an attorney of some indeterminate quality at some point in time. Bottom line is it’s generally better to have a contract than none at all. Then, the more you pay (ultimately to include an attorney), hopefully the better quality you get, but with a cost hit.

  4. Petri Pokka

    October 30th, 2007 at 9:39 am

    Err… This is different from Scribd - how? Uhm, I think “niche” is coming too far here.

  5. Blake Brannon

    October 30th, 2007 at 10:09 am

    Maybe now Scribd will get its act together.

  6. Micro Blog Community Fan

    October 30th, 2007 at 11:50 am

    Heyyyy, docstoc is now a public beta! :-)

  7. Fake "Fake Michael Arrington"

    October 30th, 2007 at 11:56 am

    So, according to their press release, they are the YouTube for professional documents. Does that mean that I need to use my video cam to record my documents, put it to crappy music, have it introduced by a fake 15-year old from Australia, and upload it to some crappy flash interface?

  8. The SEO/SEM Wiki

    October 30th, 2007 at 1:29 pm

    Can anyone say, use Adobe PDF Professional? I don’t see the need for this, albeit the fact that there are many uses for embedded documents to be sent to others. I would stick with Google Docs and Spreadsheets for collaboration and pdfs for showing content in a nice, concrete form. I do enjoy the flash player for these pdfs though… Flash is so widely distributed, PDF’s are as well but not as widely supported by the non-savvy group of users on the web.

    I’m unsure as to the goal of this. Replace Google Docs & Spreadsheets? Allow for embedded documents to be shown in flash or is it just another web application?

  9. Jim Simpson

    October 30th, 2007 at 1:42 pm

    I’m really curious how they’ve private labeled the Flash Paper UI. I’ve scoured Adobe’s documentation and came across some info on an old (read: Macromedia) Flash Paper API, but there’s not a lot to go on here.

    I’d love to understand how they’ve modified the Flash Paper control and branded it. Can anyone enlighten me on this process?

  10. visez.trance

    October 30th, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    What about the oasis opendocument format ?

  11. Jim Simpson

    October 30th, 2007 at 2:01 pm

    More to the point of my last post, I’m completely baffled how Scribd, DocStoc, etc, are encoding uploaded documents into Flash Paper format. Anyone?

  12. Ray

    October 30th, 2007 at 2:40 pm

    So it’s another, more flashy, essay mill? They can wave their hands all they want, that’s what this will devolve into, if anything.

  13. Steve Ballmer

    October 30th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    We at MS would never use something like this!
    I insist that all memos to me be typed on a typewritter and duplicated with that blue paper stuff!
    Now THAT is security!

    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  14. Mitch

    October 30th, 2007 at 5:46 pm

    Jim,

    What makes you think they have modified the Flash Paper control? It looks pretty stock to me - even displaying the fact that Adobe doesn’t really support it anymore - hence the Macromedia logo…

  15. Manoj Ranaweera

    October 30th, 2007 at 5:46 pm

    Erick, wonder whether you know that TechCrunch featured http://www.edocr.com on 18th October! We are currently in Alpha with different business model. Best regards Manoj

  16. Manoj Ranaweera

    October 30th, 2007 at 5:47 pm

    Oh, by the way, congratulations Jason.

  17. Mitch

    October 30th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

    Oh i see. The docstoc logo in the embedded widget.

    I’m pretty sure the Flash Paper widget is really just a SWF and as such you can use ActionScript to get access to some of the individual UI components. That’s how you could change the logo…

  18. Kathy

    October 30th, 2007 at 8:39 pm

    How do they intend to provide esignatures on stored documents?

    What good is storing documents if you can’t recreate as a binding form with a binding signature.

  19. sofia

    November 8th, 2007 at 3:56 am

    […]on the surface i agree with you all[…]

« Previous post
Next post »