Why the Scribd Blog is Better than Butter

Where do you go for the most up-to-date site on what’s happening with Scribd?  Why, to its blog, of course.

But wait! While it does feature press-release style updates, it’s no corporate excuse to spread propaganda. You’ll find out fascinating facts such as being introduced to Academia.edu, where academics can go to “host their own webpage and find other academics” – and where you can also publish “papers, dissertations, and theses”.  

It reviews new uploads, such as “You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up” by Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn – a husband and wife’s funny but honest look at marriage… and LearnVest’s excellent if basic “Financial Bootcamp” series, tailored to women.

Among standard categories such as “New Feature”, “Publisher” and “Author”, you’ll find information on site updates and changes, “Tips & Tricks” and “API Integration”.

For example, under “Site Updates/Changes”, I’ve actually just discovered an announcement of Scribd’s new search tool, which allows you to refine your searches with advanced query search operators, such as OR ( | ), AND (&) and NOT (-).

The proximity search operator allows you to search for groups of words close to each other, which you can specify, like so:

“Samoyed dogs”~10”

- And more…

Feeling Topical?

Under the post “Topical Storm”, Scribd announces a new topics section – their other answers to searches being too broad, amid the millions of books and documents readers have to choose from.

Work-arounds and User Tips

Under “How-To”, Scribd obligingly publicizes a work-around created by a user – one that allows you to embed your Scribd documents in eduforums.

Author, Author

Writers should sit up and take notice at the “Author” section, where Scribd is happy to publish articles about authors who have uploaded previews or complete works to their site (complete with photos and links).

Speaking of which, one Scribd feature I really like is the ability to download a chapter or two of an established author’s new book or novel, and have a taste of it before deciding whether to buy. This is a feature which benefits both reader and author.

And if you don’t want to log into your own Twitter account, just check out all Scribd’s latest tweets (and bit.ly links) by glancing at the right-hand side of the blog page, to see if anything grabs your attention.

I’m picky about my social networking, because I really don’t have much time for it (like so many people, nowadays. I tend to revisit sites that streamline, save time and help me get quickly to where I want to go.

Scribd and its well-written and presented blog definitely fit into that category!