(Image source: CNET/CBS)
BY MEGAN FAROKHMANESH
ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN
You’re watching multisource video analysis tech news by Newsy.
The “YouTube of documents” and the “Netflix of reading”?
Scribd’s new reading application has been described as both--and it’s already floating to the top.
Jared Friedman: “What we are launching is Float, which is a new, digital reading service... Float is targeted at serious readers of news and blogs, and what we do is we take that content, and we strip away the clutter and create a beautiful, clean reading experience and then we make it accessible on all your devices.”
So how exactly does it work? CNET explains...
“The basic idea is that it can be hard to read full Web pages on smaller devices like smartphones, so Float strips down those Web pages and converts them on the fly to the Float format.”
With Float-- users pick news categories according to their interests--and much like Twitter, follow them. The service is free for now-- but subscription-based premium content is expected to roll out later this year. (Video: YouTube)
The New York Times reports-- this could be big news for the news industry.
“Subscribers will be able to read a variety of publications in one place, minus the bother of having to sign up for them one at a time... Publications on Float would get a cut of the revenue after its subscription program starts in the fall...”
Scribd CEO Trip Adler tells CNN- it’s all about streamlining.
“‘We’re trying to tie all those features and bring all that content together into one app because there’s really no reason why you should be navigating with Pulse, saving those articles with Instapaper, and then reading books with something else.’”
Float is currently only available on the iPhone, but plans are in store for Android and the iPad.
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