Back in January Google launched a huge repository of science data at research.google.com. The idea is to create a home for terabytes of open-source scientific datasets built on the data visualization technology from Trendalyzer. Storage and access to the data is free and documents have YouTube-style annotating and commenting features. But they aren’t the only one interested in this idea.
Now, launching its beta, is a new site from Germany, Twidox. The aim is to create an online library of ‘quality’ documents which have been created and uploaded by users, such as academics, researchers and non-governmental agencies. Universities get to save on printing and distribution. Their documents are optimised for search engines - assuming they haven’t already thought of this of course - and Twidox can sell advertising against the content. It just got got a second round of investment from Media Ventures, a German VC, which took a 20% stake in the startup (though terms were not disclosed).
But, I hear you say, what about Scribd? The difference here is that Twidox will concentrate on the high end of the market - data, statistics, academic articles, dissertations, and so forth. And the focus is not so much on any old user as direct co-operation with institutions. Twidox has so far managed to pick up the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) as a client and is now looking to extend into European universities. Interestingly there is also a UK startup trying to do something similar, edocr (reviewed here), but edocr is yet to win substantial backing, and aims more at businesses.
TechCrunch has 500 beta invites for Twidox to give away. When you click on “Register now for private-beta” there is a box called “How do you know about us?” Write TechCrunch in there to get on the beta.
TC, thanks for the beta invite.
Hi TC, this is great. I’ve been looking for a notable source to get academic data freely. Just what I need for uni.
This space is getting crowded, found another one on worldofwarcraft forums on some random troll’s sig, http://www.doczu.com (Document sharing as well).
This is really great..Thank you for the beta invite too.
DocStoc/Scribd for academia and “high” end documents? Is there a vertical play or am I missing something? I did sign up, so we will see.
Interesting idea, though and it will be interesting to see if academics from computing disciplines use these services or they stick donating data to the popular traditional free data repository such as UC Irvine Machine Learning Repository and the likes, where anyone can download the dataset and test/benchmark their algorithm on those.
Have a look at doXtop - which can publish complete and well structured magazines & sites out of scientific or business documents. Yesterday the release public 1 was launched.
Uh… what about the Arxiv? http://arxiv.org/
Just because it’s 20 years old and heavily used everywhere doesn’t mean it’s not relevant.
pathetic last-gasp strategy for a late arrival in a crowded market - make up some contrived target audience. as if profs are sitting around chomping at the bit for fly-by-night startups to monkey with.
my guess is after three months of no uploads, they’ll breakdown and start accepting “how to give a blowjob” docs
arxiv is losing no sleep
Ellis said…
Uh… what about the Arxiv ?
Yeah, that’s the good site Ellis. I frequently do download some papers from Arxiv, that ones that you don’t find at CiteSeer.
Thanks for mentioning us Mike. The market is certainly getting attention with number of new players, each trying to find a niche. In our case, we have restricted to two document formats (.doc and .pdfs) and will concentrate on business customers. http://www.edocr.com is not about document share, but it’s about providing a rich distribution and marketing channel for business documents.
Our aim has always been to develop the product fully before seeking external funding. We had a significant set back recently due to teaming up with the wrong supplier. This has led us to explore the possibility of raising funding early to support product development, product management, and sales and marketing. Our model relies less on advertising and heavily on value addition.
Bit early days to comment on fund raising. But early feedback is very promising. We are also encouraged by Saul Klein’s investment into slideshare, which demonstrates the maturity of UK investors. Slideshare has influenced our thinking more than our so called US competitors. Whilst we do not compete with Slideshare, we see the edocr opportunity far greater than what is possible with Slideshare. By concentrating on business user, we can finally help businesses evaluate the impact of web 2.0 technologies within the enterprise.
We now seek out an exceptional individual who can take 100% responsibility for product development and management (call him/her a CTO if you wish). If you know anyone who can help us move to the next key milestone and beyond, do send him/her my way. But please, do the necessary research before approaching.
Lot more work to do..Catch you at SeedFund BBQ this Thursday.