E-Book Subscription Service Scribd Raises $58 Million

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E-Book Subscription Service Scribd Raises $58 Million
November 25, 2019
https://variety.com/2019/digital/ne...-service-scribd-raises-58-million-1203415223/

Digital reading subscription service Scribd has raised a $58 million round of funding led by Spectrum Equity. The new funding round brings the total amount of money raised by Scribd to $106 million.

Scribd launched in 2007 as a hosting service for digital documents, and has since evolved into a subscription service for e-books, audio books and magazines. The company announced in early 2019 that it had surpassed 1 million subscribers.

“This funding will enable us to continue to operate sustainably and efficiently while accelerating our growth, product innovations, content acquisition and continued investment in our employees.”
By combining e-books and magazines under one monthly plan, Scribd is effectively competing with both digital bookstores like the ones operated by Amazon and Google as well as news subscription services like Apple News Plus.

In fact, Scribd did partner with the New York Times last year to launch a dedicated plan that offers access to both the Times website as well as the Scribd book and magazine catalogue.
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guest, Nov 25, 2019

#1

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Scribd gives free access to online library amid COVID-19
March 21, 2020
https://technology.inquirer.net/97573/scribd-gives-free-access-to-online-library-amid-covid-19

As the world goes on quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, American e-book and audiobook subscription service Scribd has given free access to its digital library’s wide array of contents.
The company’s CEO and founder, Trip Adler, took to Facebook on March 19 to announce the good news to the public.

Scribd’s digital library, which houses millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazine articles and others, will be free to anyone for 30 days. People can access Scribd via their app or through https://scr.bi/ReadFree.

“There is no credit card or commitment required,” the CEO noted.
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Scribd: A letter from the Scribd CEO to our community

guest, Mar 23, 2020

#2

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Scribd acquires presentation-sharing service SlideShare from LinkedIn
August 11, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/11/scribd-acquires-slideshare/

SlideShare has a new owner, with LinkedIn selling the presentation-sharing service to Scribd for an undisclosed price.
According to LinkedIn, Scribd will take over operation of the SlideShare business on September 24.

Scribd CEO Trip Adler argued that the two companies have very similar roots, both launching in 2006/2007 with stories on TechCrunch, and both of them focused on content- and document-sharing.

“The two products always had kind of similar missions,” Adler said. “The difference was, [SlideShare] focused on more on PowerPoint presentations and business users, while we focused more on PDFs and Word docs and long-form written content, more on the general consumer.”
Over time, the companies diverged even further, with SlideShare acquired by LinkedIn in 2012, and LinkedIn itself acquired by Microsoft in 2016.
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So when Microsoft and LinkedIn approached Scribd about acquiring SlideShare, Adler saw an opportunity to expand the document side of the product dramatically, incorporating SlideShare’s content library of 40 million presentations and its audience of 100 million unique monthly visitors.
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(Microsoft's) Linkedin: Digital library leader Scribd has acquired SlideShare
Scribd: Welcome SlideShare to the Scribd community

“Our acquisition of SlideShare is a major step towards creating the world’s largest digital library,” said Trip Adler, co-founder and CEO of Scribd.
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guest, Aug 12, 2020

#3

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GDPR Violation: ScribD acquires PII on 500M users in a deal with LinkedIn
September 1, 2020
https://thehftguy.com/2020/09/01/gd...es-pii-on-500m-users-in-a-deal-with-linkedin/

TL;DR: If you have a LinkedIn account, you were signed up to SlideShare automatically without your knowledge or consent. Your account including all your personal information will be sold to ScribD unless you opt-out now. See “How to Opt Out” at the end of this article.
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In early August, ScribD announced the acquisition of SlideShare for an undisclosed amount. I personally never registered to either services, no clue what ScribD except I think I heard the name before.
Received this email on my personal inbox index a few days after the annoncements.
It’s puzzling:

Why was it send to me? I’ve never used SlideShare

Where did they get my personal email? How did they get my full name too? (cut it out at the bottom) [...]

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Root Cause
After further reading and investigation. Here’s some explanations:
SlideShare was acquired by LinkedIn (Microsoft) in 2012 for $119M dollars.

SlideShare is owned by Linked, that’s why the email refers to and links to LinkedIn multiple times.

All the personal information originates from LinkedIn (names, email, phone numbers, etc…). I do have a profile with some info. [...]

A classic business deal to bundle and resell PII through a subsidiary. A quick google search says there are 500M users on LinkedIn (250M active in the past three months).
No wonder that ScribD is interested in buying SlideShare… with 500M unwilling users served on a plate.
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How to Opt Out
Follow this guide. https://www.linkedin.com/help/slideshare/answer/53671 [...]
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guest, Sep 17, 2020

#4

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E-Book Subscription Service Scribd Raises $58 Million

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