There are two main startups trying to become the ‘YouTube for documents’, notably Scribd and Docstoc. Newly launched edocr, coming out of the UK, does something similar, but with a twist.
Edocr lets you upload your document and then allow people to download, share or embed it via a Flash interface on any website. The twist is that while competitor sites tend to allow any old document to go up, edocr is going to just focus on .doc or .pdf. So no spreadsheets or presentations. This could mean they keep the ‘pool’ of documents relatively untainted by those rather different PowerPoints.
Future plans include special interest groups, and CEO Manoj Ranaweera tells me the site should be able to build connectors to Opentext’s ECM packages, so that public facing documents can be published straight on to edocr.
Since launching 8 months ago, Scribd has raise $3.5 million from Redpoint Ventures. Meanwhile Docstoc, currently in private beta, is going to be geared toward professions.
It remains to be seen how edocr – currently 100% self-funded – will do, but I don’t see why they shouldn’t have a shot at things.