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Scribd expands its subscription catalog with over 1,000 magazines
Scribd is expanding its magazine line-up.
Waze adds built-in audio player to spice up your commute
You won't have to use Google Maps if you want a built-in music player to accompany Google's navigation tools. In the wake of a Spotify tie-in last year, Waze has released beta versions of its Android and iOS apps with a native audio player that supports eight services in total. Deezer, iHeart Radio, NPR One, Pandora, Scribd, Stitcher and TuneIn are now available alongside Spotify to give you a choice of listening material for your commute. Not every app is available on every platform (you can use TuneIn only on Android, for example, while Deezer only works on iOS), but you only need to sync Waze with a third-party app to have access to familiar tunes on your next drive.
Scribd's all-you-can read service adds major newspaper articles
Scribd's transformation into an all-you-can-read subscription-based service hasn't always been smooth-sailing, but it's truly moving farther away from its PDF roots. The company has just announced that it's teaming up with its first newspaper partners and a few popular news brands, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Financial Times, NPR and ProPublica.
Scribd adds unlimited access to 'New York' and 'Time' magazine
Last summer Scribd axed romance novels because it couldn't afford them. Business has apparently stabilized because now it's adding magazines to the fold. Not those types of magazines, though. Starting this month, what's being added to the subscription-based reading service is unlimited access to publications Bloomberg Business Week, Fortune, Money, New York, People and Time. The magazines are a value-add and won't bump the existing $8.99 monthly fee, according to Wall Street Journal.
Scribd can't afford to feed your romance habit anymore
The idea behind every all-you-can-eat-style service is that only a few people will consume more food/movies/e-books than it costs overall to keep the business going. Unfortunately people's lust for written romance is so immense that Scribd's cutting them off in order to remain a viable business. The company has sent out a letter to several publishers, including Smashwords, saying that it would be making some adjustments to its romance catalog.
You can now listen to the 'Game of Thrones' audiobooks on Scribd
At this point, it's almost illegal if you don't describe Scribd as the Netflix of reading, which has just signed a new audiobook deal with Penguin Random House. The agreement gives the service access to 9,000 of the super publisher's library, including blockbuster titles like the Game of Thro... A Song of Ice and Fire series. If your inner goddess prefers something more sensual, however, you can enjoy Fifty Shades of Grey on a train before jumping on transport-based thriller Girl on the Train. The titles are available to everyone who pays the $8.99 monthly fee, but we should warn you that it's not likely that you'll finish all of George R.R. Martin's books before the fifth season of Game of Thrones ends.
Read thousands of comic books with a Scribd subscription
Scribd's monthly subscription includes unlimited access to its library of audio and e-books, and as of today, you can add comics to that list. The service announced that it added over 10,000 comic books for leisurely reading, and the more visually striking reading material will be included in the regular $9/month plan. Comics from publishers like Marvel, Archie, Valiant, Dynamite and more are available, meaning titles like Captain America, The Avengers, Harbinger and others can be read both on the web and that trusty mobile device. Not sure if you're ready to commit? You can try Scribd for a month free of charge before opening your wallet.
Scribd adds 30,000 audiobooks to its subscription service
Scribd's e-book subscription service seems to be making some inroads on Amazon's turf, and now the company is looking to take a swipe at Audible's lunch. From today, subscribers will be able to access a library of 30,000 audiobook titles that include big name authors like Suzanne "Hunger Games" Collins, Haruki "Norwegian Wood" Murakami and Cormac "The Road" McCarthy. Fortunately, there's no extra charge despite the bounty of new content, so users will still only be paying their regular $8.99 fee, and is available on Android, Kindle Fire and Nook devices. What about iOS users, you presumably ask? The company's still working on that particular app, but it's scheduled to land "in the coming days."
Top publisher embraces Oyster's and Scribd's Netflix-like services for e-books
Out of the five biggest publishers, HarperCollins was the first one that understood the potential of Nextflix-esque services for e-books like Scribd and Oyster. Simon & Schuster seems to have caught on, though, because it's just agreed to make roughly 10,000 of its digital tomes -- published more than a year ago -- available on the two aforementioned services. Since three of the Big 5 have yet to sign up, titles from indie and other traditional publications still dominate Scribd's and Oyster's offerings. (Not that we're complaining, that's a great way to discover books you wouldn't pick up in a store otherwise.) But, this deal adds a ton of popular titles to the mix, including ones written by authors you'll likely recognize, such as Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson and Jodi Picoult. As to how these huge publishers are getting paid, GigaOm says they'll get the same amount as they'd earn from traditional stores once a reader consumes a set number of pages. Thus far, neither service has announced an increase in subscription fees, so it sounds like a great deal for insatiable bookworms. [Image credit: Anthia Cumming/Getty]
Scribd brings Lonely Planet guides to its book subscription service
Scribd's e-book subscription service is only six months old, and already it's working hard to hook some big names to convince you that it's worth $9 a month. The company has now snagged a deal with publisher Lonely Planet that'll see hundreds of the latter's travel guides appear on the former's platform. At the same time, the company has added in bookmarking across all devices, so you'll always be able to find that list of restaurants when you're roaming without WiFi. Great, now we've got the theme to the Lonely Planet TV series stuck in our head. Update: The folks from Scribd offered up this link, which'll give Engadget readers an extended free trial of the service.
Scribd takes on Amazon, brings its subscription e-book service to Kindle Fire tablets
The whole point of owning an Amazon tablet is that you're eventually gonna buy stuff. Want movies? Amazon's got you covered. Music? Time to check out Amazon's MP3 store. And then, of course, there's books: Amazon expects you to buy lots and lots of reading material through the built-in Kindle app. Now, though, another company is trying to get in on the action. Scribd, which already runs a $9-a-month e-book subscription service, is opening up shop on Kindle Fire tablets. As on the existing apps (Android, iOS and a web version), the Kindle version offers unlimited monthly access, allowing readers to share what they're reading and embed books onto websites. The catch? Scribd only has a deal with one major publishing house, HarperCollins, with the rest of the catalog comprised of titles from independent publishers. So, while you'll enjoy authors like Michael Chabon and classics like Sh*t My Dad Says, you'll be missing out on things like the Game of Thrones series. Then again, if you read even two books a month, that $9 fee could pay for itself.
Scribd launches subscription e-book service for Android, iOS and web
Many of us associate Scribd with embedded documents on websites, but the company has been quietly building an e-book platform -- first by selling content and later by soft-launching a subscription service. The company is now making its strategy clear by formally launching the e-book service and introducing content from HarperCollins, its first major publisher. Subscribers worldwide can pay $9 per month for access to both HarperCollins' back catalog and independent releases through apps for Android, iOS and the web. Customers can also buy any books outright, including HarperCollins' newer titles. Like with any Scribd document (and Kindle for the Web), customers can both share what they're reading and embed books into websites. If you like the prospect of all-you-can-read services like Oyster but want broader platform support, you'll want to take a close look at Scribd's new offering.
Scribd introduces Float, new iPhone app for reading online content
Online document publishing platform Scribd introduced a new mobile application for the iPhone called Float Reader. The app is a reading tool that lies somewhere in between Flipboard and Instapaper As expected, the Float Reader app lets you read documents from your online Scribd account. Scribd has also partnered with 150 publishers like Tech Crunch, Engadget, AP and Fox Sports to reformat their content for the application. Publishers are organized into categories such as entertainment, technology, sports and politics. The application has several options to make reading easy on your eyes including a night mode, battery saver mode, sunlight mode and more. Float Reader also lets you adjust the font size using the pinch to zoom gesture and navigate page to page by swiping. The app is a standard reader with some social features, but there are plans to expand the service beyond this early iteration. Scribd hopes to use this app to launch a mobile reading platform it claims will be the Netflix for written content. The company wants to ink deals with premium content providers and offer this exclusive material to Float subscribers for a basic monthly fee. Advertisements will be used to monetize the app and content providers can share in this incoming revenue. For now, you can check out Float Reader application yourself. It's available for free from the App Store. [Via AllThingsD]
Scribd positioning self to become Amazon competitor, sell books on Kindle?
The de facto place to buy Kindle books is, of course, Amazon. Given how tightly this allows Bezos & Co. to manage things we're guessing this is how the company would like to keep it, but there may be direct-to-kindle competition brewing from an unlikely source: Scribd. The site, which started off as a place to dump and share random documents, has been following the YouTube path and is now selling access to fully copyrighted works. Many of those are downloadable as text, Word, or PDF documents, meaning Kindle users can already conjure up some conversion magic and get them on their devices. But, according to Scribd CEO Trip Adler, straight to Kindle distribution is next. The question is: will they be for-pay titles, or only the billions of pages of free content the site offers? Places like Feedbooks and Gutenberg.org let you download free content direct to the Kindle already, but we're not aware of anyone selling that content yet -- other than Amazon, of course.
