Scribd is launching iPaper@Scribd today, a new feature that lets users convert outgoing email attachments to the company’s iPaper format. Documents in iPaper can be viewed in any browser that supports Flash, which should mitigate the inevitable headaches associated with getting email attachments to work properly.
The system is remarkably simple: CC ipaper@scribd.com on your outgoing email message, and everyone else on the recipient list will receive links to Scribd-ified versions of the attachments. Scribd currently supports a wide range of document formats, including the dreaded Office 2007 format. Alternatively you can send the attachment to Scribd without CC’ing others - Scribd will send just you the link back and you can then forward it on.
In an exchange for convenience, users will have to deal with a few quirks. Every time you send an attachment using the service, your recipients will receive two messages: the original message with the attachment, and the one that Scribd sends containing a link to the iPaper version. Some people might like having an original copy of the document, but the prospect of getting even more email is a bit of a turn-off. Users can also simply choose to download the original document from Scribd as well.
The document is set to private at Scribd, which means it isn’t included in their directory or indexed by search engines. That still means this is a poor choice for sensitive documents since you are posting them on the Internet. But for less sensitive materials, this sure beats sending around huge attachments by email.
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Scribd is absolutely fantastic. I’m happy they have finally launched a service that does this, as I haven’t been able to find any.
If anyone knows of additional sites that provide similar services, please let me know.
Cheers,
The Tech Juice
How is this effortless? I need to send an email with an attachment to my recipients, and scribd just so that they will get both the attachments and the link? What is the point? This just seems to be one hurried up feature to beat a competitor to market. Lets face it, most business documents sent as attachments fall into either documents, spreadsheets, pdf files, images, or powerpoint presentations. The entire portability aspect does not really matter in the businesss world since most users are able to open these files up. Therefore, one of the reasons to use this feature would be to be able to send out large attachments that the recipients would not be able to receive otherwise due to email system restrictions. Therefore, this implementation just plainly misses the point. I still have to send out the actual file to the recipients just so that they can get a link to the “portable” version of the file. My other choice is to send it to scribd and then wait for the link that I can send to others. What happens if my email system is the one that is limited the size of outgoing emails? How do I use it then?
I just don’t get it… Services these days are pushing out hurrried up features that just do not seem to have been fully thought out and label them as “effortless” or “incredible” or “revolutionary”…
I am sure that one of their competitors will come up with a truly effortless way of doing this…
Sean,
Have your tried http://www.zecter.com/ ? Its not an replacement/alternative to Scribd but its quiet innovative thought.. I tested and liked it!
Scribd is really good in rolling out new features to handle the competition that its getting around..! This feature is really interesting.. something like what Google Docs already has.. when you receive an document… you have option to open it using Google Docs ..!
A neat featured rolled at perfect time!
Cheers!
Does anyone remember Macromedia Flashpaper?
@WooHoo I don’t know about you but half the time when I send out an PPT or PDF attachment, at least one guy will have an arcane virus program that blocks all attachments, or else they don’t have Office 2007 and are too stupid to download a viewer. The ability to automatically send a web link to the people that need it is actually pretty cool. If your email provider limits the size of your attachments, it makes sense that you can just upload it to Scribd manually and send out the link yourself. The way I see it this just gives me the option of doing that automatically, which is a win for me since I live my life in Yahoo Mail.
I agree with WooHoo.
Its a good idea but poorly implemented. If they can somehow maybe have an outlook plugin where you upload the attachment directly to Scribd, then it might be a game changer. Nobody in their right mind would want to receive an attachment and ANOTHER email with a link to that same attachment.
FAIL.
I’m totally confused by your last statement: “But for less sensitive materials, this sure beats sending around huge attachments by email.”
You stated in your post that the service works by emailing attachments to ipaper@scribd.com, how does this “beat sending around huge attachments by email” then?
@Joe Bio
You’ll still need to upload the attachment originally, but you won’t have to worry about email size limits for your recipients.
Love Scribd. You will too. Rock on guys!
scribd….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I think they’ve solving a non-problem. I’ve never had an issue with accepting attachments and nor has any of my recipients.
@Jason
“this is a poor choice for sensitive documents since you are posting them on the Internet”
Well, even sent by SMTP, any document is still an easy target for eavesdroppers.
The only good option is solid encryption. That’s kinda my personal rant and you’re welcome to check out our easy OpenPGP plugin for Outlook at http://www.cgeep.com.
It’s definitely a problem solver, but it’s a problem that a small fraction of folks deal with. The large majority of document attachments sent are either intra-company or too sensitive to be on Scribd.
Temporary file storage service is old stuff. I don’t understand why Scribd keeps reinventing the wheel.
Have been using Scribd for a year and find it to be one of the most useful, entertaining and informative services on the web. It is in that special class of totally original thinking combined with excellent design, such as Drop.io & Plurk/Twitter. While they did use some of my beta suggestions, I have no connection to the company.
If you make a document private, it is invisible to the public. I’m not a security maven so I don’t know how secure this is, but I store there an array of legal documents, as well as family history and company material, some of those private. Let me know if you break in and I’ll send you a bottle of the company’s famous “Royal Prastara”.
They have excellent upload and automatic conversion, so as pointed out above, any clueless user can get a useable format, even including spoken text.
Time will tell if this feature is useful; several comments above are not accurate as to how it works, so as usual, internet comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Other than to direct you to my orignal photo of Sharon Stone to in order to measure Goggle’s penetration and interval, a study I’m coming up with.
Douglas Hopkins
http://www.scribd.com/people/view/16838
http://douglashopkins.blogspot.com/
@Douglas Hopkins
From what I understand, documents are made private by giving them a “secret” url that isn’t indexed by search engines because nothing links to it. However, if somebody (say, one of the people you sent your doc to) was to post the link somewhere, anyone would be able to view it.
I think I may owe you a bottle…in some sense. You are correct, the link links, so rather than a password one is totally dependent on the recipients to keep it private. I suppose with the hit stats on the document’s page you might become aware of a leak. Me and my biz are still intact, so I’ll rest easy…with my eyes open.
Drop me a line to arrange the prize. DouglasHopkins(at)gmail.com. For more info Google “Douglas Hopkins Prastara”
Thanks…Twitter works great for TechCrunch and the added personal repartee is great, for example with Scobel.
Incidentally, Google picked up this thread in about 30 minutes, but on your reply, not my comment. Pretty impressive to be sweeping the web at such a rate.
Scribd needs to offer a version of iPaper that anyone can run on their own servers for their own applications. I don’t want to be forced to host my sensitive files on Scribd’s (read Amazon S3’s) servers. This would open Scribd up for big corporate applications - like online display of bills for BofA, Gas Company, Verizon, etc. for example. These guys would never go for a fully-hosted service run by a bunch of kids.
> dreaded Office 2007 format
Unnecessary cheap shot at Microsoft.
I agree, an Outlook plugin would be the way to go.
Too much noise, and a very bad feature.
I just run a test. I send some RESUME to a Client, and then look into my Folder a Scribd. It happens you get nothing in the your INbox FOlder or in your my Docs
To be able to reach the document, you have to find the original Link in the mail scribd sent to you or remember the keyword. How then can a person remembers, let say, a 1.000 keyworks. Those guys are just crazy.
This services as of today, is Useless, at least from my point of view as a Corporate Recruiter
Things would be very different, if for each email send with Copy CC to ipaper@scribd.com one would get in his or her directory copy of the file sent.
Even when filing within scribd the system creates ficticious users.
My feeling is that they launch without any previous testing at all.
Regardas
Justino Mora
Corporate Recruiter, Venezuela
What ever happened to all those email server add-ons that stripped attachments from emails and put them on a central FTP server? Those were supposed to help solve the email quota problem.
But I’m a Yahoo Mail user…wtf good does an Outlook plugin do me? I say kudos for not going the “let’s assume everybody uses Microsoft” route. I also don’t understand how trusting my email recipients with a “secret” URL is any less secure than trusting them with my attachments to begin with (tho calling the URL “secret” is a bit lame).
Either way, it seems like detractors are jumping on Scribd for offering a service that they don’t feel applies to them. Using phrases like “how could anybody in their right mind use this” is jejune myopia in extremis.
i like the idea, but agree the implementation could use some work - an outlook plug-in would be ideal. i’ve used yousendit’s outlook plugin for some time. automatically takes large attachments and sends recipients links to download the files rather than a large attachment. doesn’t solve the problem of slow adults who won’t download the office 2007 viewer, but it saves me tons of server space…
@Justino Mora
The product will only work if you send the attachment to the right address. You sent your attachment to paper@scribd.com, not ipaper@scribd.com.
Oopsie.
Jason
Don’t understand why you don’t sign up for a free account (individuals and non-profit) and get your own management account????
This conversion is done fast and effective for free and convert MS Office 2003/2007 and you can send the link by email easy
Check: http://uniflip.com
@Sean
“If anyone knows of additional sites that provide similar services, please let me know.”
Since you ask, we’ve been doing this for a while now with our
cc-at-nnotate.com address for shared annotation at http://a.nnotate.com/
Is there a way to make the actual document get embeded in the email? Not the link, but the actual content.
Hi there,
I need some help in outlook. we have some files in shared drive which are updating everyday and should forward to a contact list. is there any VBA coding to automate this?.
Please help.
Thanks
efto
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