Scribd, the online document sharing site, has launched a mobile application that lets users send content to electronic readers (such as Kindle) and smartphones.
Scribd users can now send non-copyrighted documents from their computers to mobile devices. Scribd has more than 10 million documents on the site, which enables users to turn nearly any file—including PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel—into a Web document and share it.
Scribd users can send documents directly to the Kindle over the e-readers’ wireless connection. Amazon charges a fee of 15 cents per megabyte for the transfers. Other e-readers have to be plugged into the PC. Scribd users can then drag content from the site to the e-readers.
Scribd is planning to follow up with its own app, to be launched in March. The app is designed for iPhone and Android, and will publish a set of application programming interfaces, called SOPED (Scribd Open content Platform for Ereaders and mobile Devices). This will give device manufacturers the ability to integrate Scribd’s search, social and other functionality into their products, and this has already been taken up by e-reader makers Interead and Onyx.
Most of the content on Scribd is free, and the site’s business model revolves around ads. Scribd attracts around 40 million users a month.
