I must say I haven't hated something with such great passion as I hate scribd and similar services. The only reason why I still end up on scribd.com is because some idiotic friend is not able to link the direct source for the document in question.<p>I absolutely don't get it how such a service adds value to the web. It's great for scribd to have 60 million readers. I am one of them. Why? Because I'm freaking forced to sign up to download a pdf.<p>"A social publishing company that aims to liberate the written word by democratizing the publishing process for everyday people". - Sounds great. Could you please provide the link?
Better than most 'how to be successful in 10 easy steps' presentations. The most impressive aspect was listing early failed ideas and what was learned from them.<p>I'm still not sure I see the point of Scribd, because I had no problem reading PDFs and the like on originating sites before it came along, but hey. Also, we desperately need a new namespace. I am so sick of cutesy homonyms. It's like that phase a few years ago where all edgy books/movies/ articles had a title of the form 'Verbing the Noun'.
I love how more Buzzword Compliant their slides got from Slide 9 to Slide 13 as they refined Scribd.<p>It started with <i>A way for academics to publish online more easily</i> and ended up with <i>A social publishing company that aims to liberate the written word by democratizing the publishing process for everyday people</i>.
"A social publishing company that aims to liberate the written word by democratizing the publishing process for everyday people".<p>This reminds me of that old Tom Lehrer joke about how the problem with folk music is that it was written by common people. If it had been written by professional musicians it would have been good. There are a lot of crap writers out there, giving them a platform doesn't improve anything. Not even for them. If you're a crap writer and can't get your work published you always have the mental salve that the publishers are against you. Once you can upload your crap to scribd you'll discover that it wasn't the publishers after all, it was that you suck. Which is better?<p>Writing is not easy and barriers to entry (such as editors or agents) actually help filter out a ton of crap.<p>The assumption that publishing should be democratic is ludicrous as the only books published in a democratic world would be pap that panders to the unwashed masses.
This is kind of content-free and contradictory. "Just because you have an idea doesn't mean it's a good idea" vs "bounce ideas off of smart people" vs "Trust your instincts and dont' worry about others' opinions".<p>Also "Trip method unit"? "Ideation"? That quality/time graph? Is this a joke?
Here's a pic from the event. Trip is so much younger than the other panelists...<p><a href="http://www.founderinstitute.com/posts/50" rel="nofollow">http://www.founderinstitute.com/posts/50</a>