3d - Site of your choice
Pick a site of your choice and that you would categorize as a site that supports sharing and collaboration and utilizes social tagging. Get acquainted with the site and try to figure out how it works and how it can be used in educational contexts.
The result of your work should only be presented as a part of the presentation you make for assignment 3e (hence no report URL has to be submitted for 3d). The presentation should describe the basic functionality and how it can be used.
Scribd.com
Introduction
“Scribd is the world’s largest social reading and publishing company. We've made it easy to share and discover entertaining, informative and original written content across the web and mobile devices. Our vision is to liberate the written word, to connect people with the information and ideas that matter most to them.”(About Scribd / scribd.com)
Scribd was founded by Trip Adler in 2006.” In September 2009, BusinessWeek named Scribd one the “World’s Most Intriguing Startups” In December 2009, Forbes named Scribd one of its “10 Hot Startups”. Fast Company Named Scribd “One of its Top 10 Most Innovative Media Companies” in February 2010.
In May 2010, Scribd was recognized as one of the “2010 Hottest San Francisco Companies” by Lead411.
On September 1, 2010, the World Economic Forum announced the company as a Technology Pioneer for 2011. After the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Award, Time Magazine named Scribd one of the “10 Start-Ups that Will Change Your Life”. (Wikipedia, Scribd history)
Stats
- · million readers every month
- · 20 million embeds
- · 1 billion pages converted to HTML5
- · Tens of millions of documents published
- · Millions of Readcasts every month
The Company
- · Launched: March 2006
- · Headquarters: San Francisco
- · Employees: 40
Features
Scribd.com is a Web 2.0 based document-sharing website which allows users to upload documents in different formats like .PDF, .Doc, .Docx and .Ppt etc. This online office suite also gives users the opportunity to embed these kinds of documents into a web page using its iPaper format. Users also can download favorite documents in different format mentioned before.
Interactive environment
The website provided an interactive environment to store the documents, read them and communicate between the authors and owners. It is an easy way to publish your documents or scientific papers.
Scribd.com works completely as a social network. So it has all social networks’ features plus some additional tool that makes competitive advantages like
- · My Collections
- · My Shelf
- · Public Profile and public documents
- · Inside Messages
- · Notifications
- · Readcast
- · Multilanguage documents
- · Download deactivating
- · Keyword managing system
Scribd uses iPaper which is a format comparable to PDF for the web, which lets users to embed documents into a web page like websites, weblogs and online forums. iPaper allows documents to be viewed the same across different operating systems without conversion, as long as the reader has Flash installed (while Scribd has provided non-Flash support for the iPhone).
All major document types can be formatted into iPaper including Word docs, PowerPoint presentations (ppt and pptx), PDFs, Open Document documents, OpenOffice.org, XML documents, and PostScript files.
All iPaper documents are hosted on Scribd’s exclusive hosts and servers. Scribd allows published documents to either be private or public. As mentioned earlier the iPaper document viewer is also embeddable in any website or blog, making it simple to embed documents in their original layout regardless of file format.
On May 5, 2010, Scribd launched the largest implementation of HTML5 to date at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. TechCrunch reported that Scribd is migrating away from Flash to HTML5. "Scribd co-founder and chief technology officer Jared Friedman tells me: “We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any document can become a Web page.”" In July 2010 Publishers Weekly wrote a cover story on Scribd entitled “Betting the House on HTML5 (Faulkner et al.)
Upload and then download!
If you are interested to download a document, at first you should upload one or more! This policy helps the website to increase the quantity of documents. Other users can rate your job and follow you for more publications.
Multilanguage documents
The website’s official languages are English, Español and Português (Brazil) but you can see that there are documents uploaded in so many languages onto the website.
Buy or sell
Users also can sell their documents through the system. However this feature is limited to a few countries and all the users are not able to sell their publications via this website.
Socializing
The scribd is a very good example for Web 2.00 websites since it provides all necessary features for sharing your published documents on the most popular social networks like Facebook.com and twitter.com. In addition readcast is a new feature launched by Scribd to comment on others documents and follow them.
Users can increase the reach of their Scribd presence and share their activity with friends, subscribers, and followers automatically!
Scribd badges
There is a good tool for some publishers who want to show their publications on scribd through their website or weblog. This is Scribd badge when clicked; these buttons will direct users directly to your profile, where they will be able to read your documents.
Copyright
Using this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License which means the users are free
- · to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- · to Remix — to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
- · Attribution — they must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor
- · Share Alike — if the user alter, transform, or build upon this work, he/she may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
Revenue resources
Advertising is the first source of revenue for this website. There is at least a big advertisement banner in each single page. The website are using “google adsense” advertising system to make money from its huge visitors every day.
Second source of revenue at scribd would be “Scribd Store”. 20 percent of each document sold at website goes to scribd’s bank account.
Ranking
Base on Alexa.com (24th May) Scribd has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 203. The time spent in a typical visit to the site is approximately three minutes, with 62 seconds spent on each pageview, and its visitors view an average of 2.0 unique pages per day. Compared with internet averages, the site's audience tends to be Hispanic; it also appeals more to childless men earning less than $30,000 who have postgraduate educations and browse from home and school.
Slideshare.com
Introduction
SlideShare.com is an online slide hosting service. Users can upload files in the following file formats: PowerPoint, PDF, Keynote and OpenOffice presentations. Launched on October 4, 2006, the website was originally meant to be used for businesses to share slides among employees more easily, but it has since expanded to also become a host of a large number of slides which are uploaded merely to entertain. The website gets an estimated 12 million unique visitors a month.
Features
Interactive environment
The website is considered to be similar to YouTube, but for slideshows. SlideShare.com is one of the world's largest communities for sharing presentations. Users can upload documents and then share them on blogs, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. 50 million people use SlideShare every month for research, sharing ideas, connecting with others, and generating business leads. SlideShare.com also supports documents, PDFs, and videos.
Upload and download!
If you are interested to download a document, at first you should upload one or more! This policy helps the website to increase the quantity of documents. Other users can rate your job and follow you for more publications.
Private uploads
At this feature, user can employ website as a place for storing documents, not for public uses. Some companies use this website as a place for remote meeting where all employees at various branches can join and attend at presentations. The website was originally meant to be used for businesses to share slides among employees more easily, but it has since expanded to also become a host of a large number of slides which are uploaded
Official language /Multilanguage documents
The official language of Slideshare.com is English in compare with scribd.com which has three official languages. However you, as a visitor might find documents and presentations in different languages.
Slidecast and ZipcastTM
A slidecast is a term that is used to describe an audio podcast that is combined with a slideshow or presentation. It is similar to a video podcast in that it combines dynamically-generated imagery with audio synchronization, but it is different in that it uses presentation software, such as PowerPoint, to create the imagery and the sequence of display separately from the time of the audio podcast's original recording.
Slidecasting may be useful for the display of relevant photographs or text, and are an alternative to camera video recordings.
An alternative definition of the slidecast is the online distribution and syndication of video recordings of live slideshow presentations and accompanying narrations.
Zipcast™ is the new way that slideshare.com offered to its audiences to meet online. This feature is free and no need to download anything. It would Public when you want your ideas to spread Or Private when it's you and a colleague. This tool has been designed to
- · Share ideas with remote colleagues.
- · Launch your next product
- · Talk at a conference remotely
- · Teach anyone, anywhere
- · Pitch a client
- · Walk people over your sales deck
- · Support your customers
- · Run a non-profit fundraiser
- · Share your photo albums
- · Have fun sharing presentations
Socializing
The Slideshare.com is also a very good example for Web 2.00 websites since it provides all necessary features for sharing published documents on the most popular social networks like Facebook application and LinkedIn applications. The website also has the opportunity of sending documents directly to wordpress.com blogs. All contents like presentations, videos and slidecasts are able to share on social networks by special buttons automatically.
Blog Sidebar Widget and badge
People Use this widget to embed a feed of presentations and documents on their blog or website. They can select a feed from tags, groups or events, or from uploaded or favorite SlideShare content. They just have to customize and grab the code. To create a personalized widget of your own content, you need a SlideShare account.
Copyright
SlideShare.com responds to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works (Mitchell, 2003).
Revenue resources
Advertising is the first source of revenue for this website. There are at least two big advertisement banners in each single page plus a row of text advertisements. The website is also using “google adsense” advertising system to make money from its huge visitors every day.
Second source of revenue at Slideshare.com would be different PRO plans. Each plan has different features and various prices base on its facilities provided for users.
Ranking
There are 256 sites with a better three-month global Alexa traffic rank than Slideshare.net. Approximately 65% of visits to the site consist of only one pageview (i.e., are bounces). The site can be found in the “Presentation Sharing” category of sites. While the site is ranked 419 in the US, where we estimate that 15% of its visitors are located, it is also popular in Brazil, where it is ranked 104 (24th May). Compared with the overall internet population, SlideShare appeals more to Hispanics; its audience also tends to consist of childless women browsing from work and school who have postgraduate educations.
You can find the PDF version of this Assignment (plus more tables and figures) at this address.
References
FAULKNER, A., LEWIS, A., MEYER, M. & MERCHANT, N. Creating an HTML5 web based video editor for the general user.
MITCHELL, T. A. 2003. Copyright, congress, and constitutionality: how the digital millennium copyright act goes too far. Notre Dame L. Rev., 79, 2115.
My personal experiences at www.scribd.com and www.slideshare.com
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