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Scribd has talked in the past about bypassing the Kindle Store and getting books straight to Kindle owners and today they’ve unveiled exactly how they plan to do this.

Scribd’s strategy for Kindles, eReaders and mobile devices

Scribd’s strategy can be summed up as ‘become the universal, open platform that works across all eReaders, phones, and mobile devices and turns the devices into dumb pipes’. It can be broken into a few key parts -

1. Focus on the long tail of content. Also include published books. Get Publishers to offer DRM free books.  
2. Target all Devices – Create Apps for phones and devices that allow apps. Use features like ‘Send to Kindle via email’ when Apps aren’t possible.
3. Let readers access and read content from Scribd on all the above devices without letting device manufacturers get in the way.  

Scribd are also switching from PDF to ePub (courtesy FT’s article on Scribd and DocStoc) and that definitely helps.

It’s a pretty bold strategy and Tammy Nam of Scribd has this to say -

We’ve flipped the equation. So much of the conversations so far have been around the e-Reader device, but we’re flipping it to say the device itself is irrelevant.

It’s about the content and giving people the ability to consume that content on whatever device they have.

The Device itself is irrelevant?

That’s the last thing Amazon and Apple and eReader companies want to hear.

How far along is Scribd in its plan for global domination?

It’s interesting to see where Scribd is -

1. 10 million documents.  
2. 50 million visitors a month (allegedly). 
3. Tie-ups with Publishers including Random House and Simon & Schuster. 
4. They have a screen-shot up showing a ‘send document to mobile device’ feature that caters to owners of the Kindle, Nook, iPhone, Android phones, Windows Mobile phones, Blackberry, Palm, Jetbook Lite, Entourage Edge, and iRex. 
5. It has tie-ups with Onyx (maker of Onyx Boox) and Interead (maker of Cool-er).  
6. It introduces an app for iPhone and Android devices next month.
7. Guardian UK mentions that a Scribd Kindle app and an iPad App are also in the works.
8. It’s also adding APIs (courtesy Connected Planet Online) -
   

   Scribd is also making public a series of APIs, the Scribd Open content Platform for E-Readers and mobile Devices (SOPED), which gives device manufacturers the ability to integrate Scribd’s search, social and other functionality into their devices.

   It’s first customers for the platform are Interead and Onyx International.

There is, however, a pretty big roadblock on Scribd’s path to world domination.

The DRM Free Flaw in Scribd’s strategy

Here’s a comment from Scribd’s CEO -

Adler said that platform-agnostic selling was a significant step forward that would not only encourage more people to buy ebooks, but could also convince publishers to sell unprotected files, rather than encumber their products with anti-piracy locks

Don’t really see how anything Scribd is doing could convince Publishers to sell unprotected files. Their CEO’s suggestion is almost laughable given Scribd has been one of the biggest sites for online piracy - As soon as DRM Free versions will be sold they’ll show up on Scribd for free download.

If the whole strategy is based on convincing Publishers to sell their books without DRM then Scribd might have a long wait in front of them.

On the other hand if they go with ePub and Adobe DRM then they could reach a lot of devices (although not the Kindle) and not have to wait for Publishers to ditch DRM.

How can Kindle and other devices avoid/survive attacks of this sort?

As a device, platform, or infrastructure provider it’s always interesting when enemies attempt to turn you into dumb pipes.

There are a few powerful ways to avoid this -

1. Keep out enemies – Either by not allowing apps or by having strict controls. That’s why there’s a strict review process for iPhone Apps. 
2. Use the power of the default - People tend to go with the first, obvious choice. Having the Kindle Store as the default store means people usually buy from the Kindle Store (provided price and range are good).
3. Match enemies on price and range. This is especially powerful when used with the power of the default.
4. Make alternatives difficult to use. ePub stores aren’t a threat to the Kindle because few people have the time to convert ePub documents to Kindle format.
5. Integrate the store with the device in multiple ways.
6. Fight the ‘open’ and ‘free’ concepts by highlighting the limitations and pointing out that it’s just strategy.
7. Highlight the amount of effort and investment that goes into creating a device and platform and making it succeed. 

At many levels it’s a war of perceptions.

The company selling books is trying to make the eReader company seem irrelevant and closed and evil and if it can convince readers of this it has a better chance. It shouldn’t be that hard for people to see that building and maintaining a device and a platform is much more valuable than writing software that exploits that infrastructure and turns it into dumb pipes. Unfortunately, people are easily swayed when their self-interest aligns with that of the ‘open, benevolent’ company.

You have to ensure that readers’ self-interest aligns more closely with you.

Channels of Good Intent and Why Scribd is bad for books

Scribd is popular for pirated books, it’s supported by advertising (as opposed to content sales), most of the documents on it are free, there is no DRM, it’s focused on random document sharing, and there is no quality bar for documents that are shared.

Perhaps most importantly Scribd has attracted users who don’t intend to pay for books and it reinforces their behavior. It’s basically a channel of terrible intent.

Contrast that with a channel like the Kindle or Nook that has people who’ve paid $259 for an eReader, where people are paying $9.99 for books, which has most of the best books, which has DRM to ensure piracy doesn’t get out of hand, and comes with a good supporting platform.

These are channels of very good intent.

Fundamentally, companies like Scribd are trying to pollute clean, good channels with their 10 million free, low quality documents just to be able to make some small amount of money. There’s no grand plan to help reading or make things better for readers. Scribd is just taking free, low quality content (hidden under fancy terms like ‘long tail of books’) and swamping readers in the hope that it works out.

Filed under: content Tagged: | channel of good intent, kindle vs scribd