February 19th, 2008
Scribd: rich Internet....paper?
Scribd rolled out a new version of their document sharing application with an improved Flash-based interface and the ability to embed Google ads inside of the document. I’m a huge fan of FlashPaper and was really bummed when it was discontinued but was glad to see it get some use in things like Scribd. The new interface is very slick and I like the fact that you can change the view mode depending on your preference.
The biggest news for me was that they’re now supporting Google Ads inside of Flash. As Mike Potter notes this is the first time he’s seen Google Ads embedded inside of their Flash display application. I’ve gotten a ton of questions about advertising in Flash in the past couple of weeks so it’s interesting to see how Scribd did it. Text is obviously a natural medium and having the ability to inspect the document before it becomes Flash makes the task a lot easier.
The competition in the document rendering/sharing space is getting bigger. TechCrunch notes a few of the competitors including Docstoc and edocr and we recently released Adobe Share which also allows you to share and embed documents. Flash is being used for a lot of different things from rich media to rich paper. It’s cool to see nontraditional uses for RIA technologies and I hope the trend continues.
Ryan Stewart, a Rich Internet Application developer and industry analyst, recently joined Adobe's Platform Team as a Rich Internet Application Evangelist. full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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