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Docstoc does free document sharing, hoarding

Docstoc is a document browsing and searching tool for "professional documents." Unlike Scribd, which has been casually called a "YouTube for documents," Docstoc is going for a more business-oriented crowd. At least that's their pitch. The features are very similar, with a communal sense of document sharing and live-viewer for MS Office documents, PDF files, and other popular file types.

One thing that does set it apart is its user profiles and document request system. Each user gets their own profile, complete with as much personal information as their willing to share, along with a link to their LinkedIn profile (if they have one). Underneath that is a full listing of their documents, which can be searched along with everyone else's shared content.

The document request system is a little more interesting. It lets you request a document you're looking for by setting tags or keywords. This basically sets up an alert that will keep an eye on other Docstoc user submissions. When someone uploads a document that matches your criteria, you'll receive an alert. Whether or not it really matches what you were looking for is anyone's guess, but the idea is that there's hope instead of dead ends when it comes to tracking down files.

The service demoed at today's TechCrunch40 conference, although is still in private beta. To get access, you can sign up on their front page. There's also a 6-month old pre-beta walkthrough on YouTube, which I've embedded after the break.… Read more

How not to drive Mac market share.

The New York Times' Randall Stross thinks Apple missed a market share opportunity with Microsoft's missteps.

And he's hell-bent on proving it!

The biggest problem here is that Stross largely relies on one source for Mac market share, a source that conveniently places it at its lowest possible threshold, 3 percent. There are plenty of other sources you could use that will give you other results, and this piece comes across as a conclusion in search of the evidence.

That forlorn number looks even worse compared with Apple's peak worldwide share of 14 percent in 1984, the … Read more

Grooveshark leaves a bite for the music consumer

In the turbulent, choppy waters where P2P networks and copyright law chomp at each other's fins for dominance, there's at least one beast that thinks it has a solution to keep everybody happy. Its name: Grooveshark. The tagline? "Everybody gets paid."

As content distribution has mutated from analog to digital, the companies that came into existence to control the distribution have panicked and floundered. Decentralized peer-to-peer sharing made this all possible, but it's also thrown nearly a century of copyright law beyond the deep end and into rough waters.

Revver shares $1 million with videographers

Revver, a video-sharing site trudging along in YouTube's shadow, announced Wednesday that the company paid $1 million to videographers over the past year.

Los Angeles-based Revver, among the first Web sites to share advertising revenue with video creators, paid the money to 25,000 people, the company said in a press release.

Because Revver splits ad money with creators, 50-50, Nick Gonzalez at TechCrunch figured that the company makes around $2 million to $2.5 million from advertisers.

He also suggested that the figure could be lower if Revver pays more to high-end video makers.

Clip2Net takes your clipboard, files online

I use TechSmith's Snagit screen-capturing tool (review) on a daily basis to gather all sorts of shots for posts and archival purposes. It works great at getting those pixel-precise sizes you might be going for, along with taking a step or two out Windows' less-than-stellar built-in print screen function. Today I've been playing with a small download called Clip2Net. It's a free and simple screenshot program with built-in Web uploading for screenshots AND image files. It's not at all as advanced as Snagit, but if you're in the market for a relatively easy way to take and host screenshots, or share a roll of pictures with friends, Clip2Net is a promising hybrid solution.

Setup is simple: Just download and install the less-than-1MB file and you're good to go. You can start capturing right away, either in regions or the entire screen at a time. Registering and plugging in your login credentials lets you upload your shots to a Web folder that saves all your shots. Likewise, if you'd like to stay anonymous, Clip2Net will provide you with a URL where your shot is being hosted--although keep in mind that if you lose that URL, you won't be able to track it down again. … Read more

Share your screen, or help a friend

Have you ever had to talk a relative through a complicated computer task?

"OK, start by opening a command prompt."

...

*crickets*

Support professionals--such as our IT team at CNET--employ software that lets them access PCs and fix problems remotely. However, Uncle Bob's lost photos are just as important as a VP's lost e-mail.

If you're ever in a situation where you want to control another person's PC or let a friend access yours, there are several excellent software programs that allow you to do so. Most are based on the open-source Virtual Network Computing software developed by AT&T. In fact, one VNC project, VNC Free Edition from RealVNC, is led by one of the main developers from the original VNC team.… Read more

MyFamily.com brings families together

MyFamily.com lets families create private Web sites where members can post news, share photos, and host live chats, among other things. It's a great way to centralize all your family communication--my own large extended family has had a MyFamily.com space for a few years--but the site's circa-1998 interface always left me wondering why we didn't start a simple Yahoo group, which has the same functionality.

Recently I got word that MyFamily.com was getting an overhaul (in fact, the link above leads directly to the beta of MyFamily.com 2.0) and logged on to check it out. Gone are the previous version's tightly spaced lists of text links, which have been replaced with plenty of white space and a row of nine tabs across the top of the page that help you navigate the site's features. The Videos, Files, and Members tabs are self-explanatory. Events leads to a calendar of events, where family members can not only list birthdays and anniversaries but also create invitations for parties or other gatherings; Gifts takes you to a MyFamily.com area on Qoop, where you can order family photo books and tchotchkes.

The four remaining tabs--What's New, News, Photos, and Stories--are where members are likely to spend the most time.… Read more

Office 2.0 Conference preview: The flow of work

The Office 2.0 conference ( more) opens up in San Francisco tomorrow. As it did last year, this show will push the Web 2.0 concept for business as far as it can go. I expect that a lot of activity at the conference will center around groupware and work-flow applicatiosn. In the past few days I've talked to the founders of four companies competing in this space-- Central Desktop, Sosius, Huddle, and ShareMethods -- each of which is aiming to use Web 2.0 concepts like simple design, hosted services, and a-la-carte pricing, to knock Microsoft's Sharepoint off its peg, and take on Web 2.0 work-flow stalwart 37Signals' Basecamp as well. Not to mention blocking upstarts from big companies, like Webex's WebOffice, before they can get major traction.

It's going to be a tough battle for these products to stand out from each other. The founders I talked to have similar pitches. They talk about low-cost, bottom-up (as opposed to IT-driven) sales, and the fact that they're not trying to replace office products like Microsoft Office or even Web 2.0 suites like Zoho, but rather trying to bring collaboration and workflow to every business with a Web connection.

The one area where these products all need to develop the most is in their integration with these online office productivity tools. At the moment, all of these applications will help you check in and manage files that you create on your PC, and they'll handle approval cycles, discussions, and project plans. But these applications really need tight integration with tools like Google Docs to truly free users from the shackles of local software. That's not just a philosophical perspective--working half online (for work flow) and half on a PC (for productivity applications) is confusing and will slow adoption of these products.

That said, I like all these services. They fill a need that e-mail and wikis can't, and that traditional software is too heavy for. Most of the products look great and aren't over-featured, making it fairly easy for users to get up to speed on them.

The differences between these applications are not immediately obvious...

Use the Web to keep two PCs in sync

Featured on this week's Real Deal podcast: Synchronizing two computers. If you want to know how to keep yourself sane if you regularly use more than one PC, tune into this show for a rundown of my tips on how to keep files, bookmarks, and e-mail synchronized over the Web.

Products mentioned:

FolderShare LogMeIn SimplifyMedia Orb FoxMarks Del.icio.us Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

If you want to join the ongoing discussion, come on over to the Real Deal forums.

Real Deal subscription links:

For RSS readers: http://www.cnet.com/i/pod/realdeal.xml iTunes: Subscribe

Scribd rebrands Facebook app, aims at teachers

Scribd, the document sharing and hosting service, has rebranded and tweaked its Facebook application this morning. Its new name is Share Homework, and the goal, according to Scribd, is to use it as a go-between for students and teachers to share documents with each other, and to help students do something about the documents that have been sitting unused for years on their hard drives.

There's no real changes, besides a tweaked user interface and a new name (from the previous moniker of "Facebook Apps"). The tool is still a super-simple way to share documents and little … Read more