Senate to distribute documents via Scribd

Does this image scare you? Well, it shouldn't.  It should help you feel rested and assured that members of the Senate (and you ) will now have access to their documents in the most efficient way possible--whether it's 5 pages or not.

The United States Senate has reached an agreement (I'm not kidding) with Scribd to provide ad-free hosting document hosting for public Senate documents, as well as an “official Scribd liaison” presumably to help the Senate figure out how to use it. They will be using a number of other digital services as well, such as Sharepoint and UStream, to give the public a greater view into Senate proceedings.

Of course, it remains to be seen just how many people will actually bother to take advantage of this openness, but it’s nice to see the Senate taking advantage of new technological platforms.

Read more on TeleRead

Remember to follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook to be the first to learn about new releases, see behind-the-scenes at BP Wiz headquarters, and stay on top of the latest news from the publishing world!

Scribd launches iPhone reader app, hopes to become ‘Netflix of reading’ | TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics

Scribd launches iPhone reader app, hopes to become ‘Netflix of reading’ | TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics:

"Scribd is launching an iPhone app called the Float Reader, through which it hopes to become “the Netflix of reading.” Unfortunately, I can’t try this app out on my first-gen iPod Touch—it requires iOS 4.0—but from the news coverage it looks like an interesting attempt to bring some of the benefits of iPad-only reader apps like Flipboard to the smaller smartphone interface.

The Float Reader provides access to a user’s Scribd documents, as well as to articles from 150 partners including The Atlantic, Time, Salon, and TechCrunch, and to excerpts of articles friends have shared on Facebook, Twitter, or Scribd. It will also allow Instapaper-like slurping of content via a browser bookmarklet. One clever feature is that the app will support either scrolling of text by sliding your finger up and down on the screen, or flipping to a whole new page by sliding it left or right."

Remember to follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook to be the first to learn about new releases, see behind-the-scenes at BP Wiz headquarters, and stay on top of the latest news from the publishing world!