“Scribd is YouTube for documents,” says Neil Squillante of TechnoLawyer. This free online library where anyone can upload supports .doc, .pdf, .txt, .ppt, .xls, .mp3, and more.
What’s in it for legal practitioners? According to Technolawyer:
— You can use Scribd as a free document conversion tool, albeit with a limited number of file formats right now.
— You can use Scribd to convert documents into MP3 files that you can listen to while commuting, which means you can drive and bill. Ka-ching!
— You can use Scribd as a quick and dirty extranet for clients.
— Someday, I suspect Scribd will also perform free OCR.
That’s all great and yes you can keep your documents private, thus using Scribd solely as a technology tool.
But I think Scribd might even have greater utility as a marketing tool — both for you personally and your firm.
I can also see applications for librarians. Scribd seems like the ideal place to share the many presentations and guides that we do. I’ve posted a few of my PowerPoint presentations.
To get started, check out:
- Delivery Tools for Legal Professionals (blogs, rss, alerts, podcasts) – by me
- Blogging in Libraries: Finding, Reading and Creating Library Blogs – by me
- Dennis Kennedy’s collection of articles on e-discovery
- Neil Squillante’s “Jar Jar’s Law“