Everytime I see a Scribd doc I run away like if I saw the devil.
HTML does a better job.
Major Book Publishers Start Turning To Scribd
31–37 of 37 posts
Re: Major Book Publishers Start Turning To Scribd
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows PDF viewing is problematic. Scribd's iPaper eliminates that problem. Do you use Windows?
On what kind of system is iPaper better than Adobe Reader 9? Adobe Reader used to be really slow. But, even on my almost-three-year-old laptop, Adobe Reader 9 if quick. I honestly don't know why Scribd doesn't do something to improve their product when obviously so many people hate it. Scribd is one of the very, very few things about my computer that still frustrates me.
In general iPaper does a good job for smaller documents (press releases, etc.) that you just want to skim. It sucks for very complex documents, or for reading longer books online. It was never designed to be a replacement for Adobe Reader -- that would take years considering the pdf spec has the same magnitude of complexity as HTML/CSS.
Also I'm not sure what metric of 'quick' you use. The iPaper swf is around 150 kb, and the Adobe Reader binary is around 30 MB. Take a look at http://www.dearadobe.com/top_rated.php - most of the top five are related to Reader bloat.
Re: Major Book Publishers Start Turning To Scribd
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't solved until it is wrapped in a proprietary, inaccessible, bloated format like Flash. Or rendered within Javascript so you can get cool page-turning effects. Or put in a PDF inside a PowerPoint which can then be downloaded via a link on a site. Or... I am out of asinine ideas.
Or a company might decide to try to solve the problem by gathering and indexing all of these documents so they are more accessible than if they were spattered over thousands of locations, unsearchable, and cost time and money to find.
So I can trade hard-to-find but easy-to-consume for easy-to-find but hard-to-consume? That isn't really my definition of "progress". Oh, and in reality, these documents are actually less accessible once they are indexed and put in Flash, if we're using the definition of Web Accessibility.
I would also like to be given an example of something that you found hard to find via normal means but was easy to find via one of these document repositories. I am still wildly unconvinced of your general claim. Google is pretty good at the whole text indexing thing.
Re: Major Book Publishers Start Turning To Scribd
#34Everytime I see a Scribd doc I run away like if I saw the devil. HTML does a better job.
So, you say you need a format to transport a document, as one single file, from one device to another? (No talking about the beauty of hyperlinking but actually sending/storing)
And HTML doesn't offer that feature?
Ok, how about we all get together and propose the W3C to create a format BASED ON HTML, open source, free, not propietary, for everybody to use and improve upon?
How about that for an idea?
Like, instead of "Save complete page as HTML" which creates folders and hidden passages to hell, some option to save as HTMD (d for doc); where the browser serves as the document viewer with no other plugin or add on than the browser engine?
Where you can open an inspect that HTMD like we do now with "View Source"?
So when you visit a page you can "Save as HTML Doc" the whole page in one file, images included?
So we impulse a new breed of HTML doc creators, instead of PDF creators, scribd creators, nextpropietary creator, etc?
Where you can create your doc and just publish it to the web, because it is HTML and the web already knows it very well?
There, my brainfarts for the day...
Re: Major Book Publishers Start Turning To Scribd
#35Everytime I see a Scribd doc I run away like if I saw the devil. HTML does a better job.
So, you say you need a format to transport a document, as one single file, from one device to another? (No talking about the beauty of hyperlinking but actually sending/storing) And HTML doesn't offer that feature? Ok, how about we all get together and propose the W3C to create a format BASED ON HTML, open source, free, not propietary, for everybody to use and improve upon? How about that for an idea? Like, instead o…
Which wouldn't be that difficult after all, even a firefox plugin could do that.
- Move all the JS and CSS inside the main doc.
- Convert all images to src=data:
- Some other minor tweaks
There you have it, one single file in all its HTML beauty
Re: Major Book Publishers Start Turning To Scribd
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows PDF viewing is problematic. Scribd's iPaper eliminates that problem. Do you use Windows?
I do. Google Chrome and Safari both open PDFs very smoothly on Windows. Even in Firefox I am not sure Scribd is an improvement over opening plain PDF (it shows a progress indicator, but it might as well take more time to open in total).
Jesus, I don't expect groupthink from HN.
Be rational. Most users use IE on Windows. Even if you don't like it, that's the way it is. Adobe Reader 9 loading in IE can crash the browser. Don't believe me? Google "IE loading PDFs" and you'll see the huge number of users who have problems.
Flash is reasonably reliable in IE. Additionally, Scribd has the option of embedding ads in the PDF more easily by using the player, which gives them a path toward monetization.
When creating a business, you have to be realistic. This is not a techno-utopia where the best technology always wins. In the browser wars, IE is still the current leader. You have to live with it if you want to maximize profit.
Re: Major Book Publishers Start Turning To Scribd
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do. Google Chrome and Safari both open PDFs very smoothly on Windows. Even in Firefox I am not sure Scribd is an improvement over opening plain PDF (it shows a progress indicator, but it might as well take more time to open in total).
Jesus, I don't expect groupthink from HN. Be rational. Most users use IE on Windows. Even if you don't like it, that's the way it is. Adobe Reader 9 loading in IE can crash the browser. Don't believe me? Google "IE loading PDFs" and you'll see the huge number of users who have problems. Flash is reasonably reliable in IE. Additionally, Scribd has the option of embedding ads in the PDF more easily by using the player,…
Then you should have said "Internet Explorer opening PDFs is a pain point and scribd solves that". Fair enough, although I can argue Chrome is both much better solution to this particular problem :)
Personally I think scribd solves some problem for publishers, while actually degrading the experience for a significant minority of the viewers. Their relationship with publishers have significant negative externalities, and this makes scribd at least somewhat evil.