Comments on: Scribd Raises $9 Million. Still Working on Business?

By: Blogy

Blogy — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:27:51 +0000

[...] společnosti se nově stává George Consagra, který byl naposled COO social sítě Bebo. Om Malik na GigaOM do Consagry vkládá naděje: “Snad jim pomůže vidět rozdíl mezi tím být pěkný a [...]

By: Swaroop C H, The Dreamer - India, Life, Technology » Blog Archive » It is not obvious how to make money online

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 07:01:26 +0000

[...] such as scribd.com, and StockTwits are useful and interesting, but even they don’t know how to make money off of it. Heck, even Google is having a tough time in making money off [...]

By: Srini Kumar

Srini Kumar — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:28:51 +0000

They should build a fax gateway methinks, I’d like to fax customers from out of Scribd. or just license ipaper to myfax and/or efax (do away with the lousy efax reader for instance). Maybe a model so publishers could *sell* ipaper pdfs, which would be protected against pass-alongs etc – take over the whole pdf-ebook industry (“Seduction Secrets For Geeks * 215pages * only $259.00!”) because you could authenticate who was reading it (although they could always print out multiple copies – unless they can manage to lock that down too). basically they should look to substitution effects to figure out how to sell this cool tool. I’m not really buying the YouTube play so much as the document repository model – the trick is to get it so people en masse want & need a secure document lockbox as much as they want, say, an online photo album. That said let’s face it, SaaS is a tough business, and Adobe has a lot of the low-hanging fruit. They have to position as “PDF ? that’s so 90′s” or something.

By: Posts about Investors in Startups as of December 19, 2008 | The Lessnau Lounge

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:14:55 +0000

[...] Kauffman Foundation, angel capital investments returned 2.6 times the initial investment over 3.5 Scribd Raises $9 Million. Still Working on Business? – gigaom.com 12/19/2008 Over the past few years we’ve seen the rise of cute ideas, ones we love [...]

By: Dave McClure

Dave McClure — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:11:57 +0000

fair enough, let’s check in end of 2010 or so.

gentleman’s bet: if they get sold for more than the rumored ~$30-40M post-money, then you owe me dinner at your favorite healthy restaurant in SF. if they run out of cash / get sold for less, then i’m buying.

(and btw, there are prob better ways to monetize than just advertising model…)

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 21:34:38 +0000

@Dave McClure

My pessimism on this particular start up is not misplaced as I outlined earlier. I like what they have built from a technology standpoint, but I think it is this belief in the advertising model that is misplaced. the keywords etc you talk about are going to be much less effective on this service than most of you think.

I time it will be proven who is right – me or you.

By: Dave McClure

Dave McClure — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 21:22:00 +0000

@mike re “Scribd’s a joke…”

search & replace “Scribd” with “YouTube”, then re-read & consider your stance. (and yes i know Viacom et al *are* suing YouTube, but i think you’d argue even if they’re still figuring out monetization YouTube has built a pretty valuable business).

@Om: your pessimism is misplaced.

there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of startups that haven’t figured out their business model, but at the same time it’s not irrational to provide funding for businesses that show demonstrated growth & user engagement, and in particular have strong SEO customer acquisition. there is plenty of opportunity for future monetization of traffic that is well-qualified based on keywords & usage.

for the same reasons that search engines monetize well, document hosting services should also monetize well.

(disclosure: i’m an investor / advisor in similar presentation-hosting startup http://SlideShare.net)

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:39:20 +0000

@Raghu

Things like this would be plain add-ons for what you offer.

@Mike, Amen to that. You know any links you want to share with us :-)

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:38:34 +0000

@Allen

I have not but am planning to next week to get a good dose of reality. SEO plays would be an understatement if you looked at all the keywords they have been getting traffic from — redheads, army pinups and what not. Seriously, I wonder if anyone actually spent time on this service.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:22:33 +0000

Scribd’s a joke. All their content is stolen from other companies. Do a search for well known books there… you’ll see what I mean.

They need to get sued into oblivion!