Scribd (yes, I spelled it right) is a new web service very similar to Digg. But while Digg is a social network focused on rating websites and blog posts, Scribd is a social network focused on rating documents and writing.
It’s just starting out, and doesn’t seem to be that popular yet, but it really has a lot of potential. It overall runs much faster than Digg and even lets you upload documents without logging in!
Uploading a document to Scribd (.doc, .pdf, .ppt, .xls, etc.) is easy and fast. Then, it has a page where you can either view as simple HTML text or in a pdf-style flash window that’s available to be embeded into websites. And it’s not like the Adobe Acrobat PDF viewer, it’s just simple. It doesn’t take forever to load, and it’s only got the controls you need.
You can rate documents (which range from essays to online magazines to a collection of pictures) just like Digg, and even download it, no matter how you uploaded it, as a .doc, .pdf, .txt, and even an MP3 (using a computer voice, it reads out your document.) So in a way, you can use Scribd as a conversion service for files also!
Some of my favorite documents: They Didn’t Study, 10 Random Questions You’ve Never Thought of Asking, How to Succeed in Business.
I’ve been uploading some of my writing to Sribd and posting it on the writing page - so now you don’t have to download the word document, but just view it in-browser in the Scribd pdf-style document reader.
I just realized that when you Google “Scribd digg” this page is the first result!!! nice.