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Scribd's decision to dump flash pays off, user engagement triples

by njohnw on 6/19/10, 5:36 PM with 50 comments

• by watmough on 6/19/10, 6:08 PM

  It's a huge relief to look at a file on scribd and have the file be HTML, rather than flash.

  I used to avoid scribd, but now I'll happily use it. As well as the pauses and slowdowns, even the flash text rendering is wretchedly bad in comparison with the HTML rendering I get in Safari.

  Scribd have done a great job in moving over to HTML, and I'd expect the growth to keep coming. Good on them!

  Can't find the transition item here on YCN, but the first article of the transition to HTML is:

  http://coding.scribd.com/2010/05/17/facing-font-in-html/

• by andrewvc on 6/19/10, 6:26 PM

  This raises the question, who can afford to build an internet application in flash these days? It seems that making heavy use of flash in any new product would be a big mistake.

  Edit: s/begs/raises/

• by jorgeortiz85 on 6/19/10, 6:46 PM

  Great example of pivoting. (As Chris Dixon said: "Ask yourself: if you started over today, would you build the same product?" http://cdixon.org/2010/06/14/pivoting/)

  Another tidbit I found interesting:

  Now that the company has its HTML5 and iPad strategy in place, Adler says they are focusing on making Scribd more social and less reliant on search engines. Today, the majority of their traffic comes from Google, but Scribd is putting a greater emphasis on the social by closely integrating with Facebook.

  If Facebook (rather than search) becomes the principal way that people find content online, that could spell big trouble for Google.

• by gruseom on 6/19/10, 10:45 PM

  I'm surprised at the meanness of some of the comments (is it contagious from TC or something?) and I'd bet five bucks that some of the very people who slammed Scribd for not doing this are now slamming them for doing it. Therefore I want to say again that this is the most impressive technical pivot I've seen a startup do in a long time. What they're accomplishing here is a lot more difficult than it appears, and it's only going to get better over time -- probably much better. This is a real contribution to making the web more usable for all of us.

• by japherwocky on 6/19/10, 6:19 PM

  I wish they should have listened to everyone who told them how annoying the flash was in the first place, years ago.

  All's well though. Here's to hoping this sparks an even bigger movement to be rid of adobe on the web.

• by amanuel on 6/19/10, 11:42 PM

  I too always avoided Scribd due to its slowness. I generally kept looking for the original pdf on google rather than suffer at Scribd.

  The new HTML5 version is awesome. Thank you Scribd for dumping Flash. I look forward to reading many pdfs on your site going forward.

• by axod on 6/19/10, 8:31 PM

  > "User Engagement Triples"

  Overly vague. Does that mean 3 times the page views? Nothing much seems to have changed on any traffic measuring sites (quantcast, alexa, etc).

• by rmc on 6/19/10, 10:09 PM

  > Now that the company has its HTML5 and iPad strategy in place, Adler says they are focusing on making Scribd more social and less reliant on search engines. Today, the majority of their traffic comes from Google, but Scribd is putting a greater emphasis on the social by closely integrating with Facebook.

  So rather than relying on Google for most of your traffic, you'll rely on Facebook. Sounds like you're just changing one master for another.

• by BenS on 6/20/10, 5:55 PM

  Most of what Trip talks about is FB connect and recasting. I like the flash to html switch, but can someone explain why the flash to html5 conversion would increase time on the site for regular web users?

  (I find it easier to understand why people who discover scribd through FB would spend a lot more time on site than someone who reached scribd via search)

• by rmason on 6/19/10, 6:54 PM

  They rode a trend. They were in the right place when the press wanted to trump an anti-Flash story line. That PR is what tripled their engagement.

  To me the document viewing experience went backwards and judging from the comments on TechCrunch I am not alone.

• by util on 6/20/10, 5:23 PM

  I wonder if the numbers he quotes are based on comparing users forced to use the Flash view vs the new view. It sounds like instead he's largely referring to trends over time.

  How's the new interface compare in terms of load time?

• by mixmax on 6/19/10, 11:50 PM

  you need flash to watch the interview.

  Oh the irony.

• by rortian on 6/19/10, 10:38 PM

  This might be nice, but from what I can tell it does seem to work very well:

  http://www.scribd.com/doc/21569338/Formulas-for-the-MFE-Exam

  At least before, people could read this.

• by jeb on 6/19/10, 7:35 PM

  User engagement is a convenient metric to use, because it's something that only they have access to internally. If pageviews had gone up, that would have been proper proof that their strategy worked.

  This is similar to a diaper company changing the fluff on the diapers and releasing a paper saying customer satisfaction is much higher.