The "cheap trick" part is that the winner is determined by number of page views (which really is a factor of the spamming ability of the contestant) rather than any intrinsic "interesting"-ness of the submissions.
I'm not knocking it, the internet runs on this kind of "cheap trick", and it will generate a ton of traffic and new users. I don't know if it will generate much good will towards Scribd.
The whole point of the site is to post and share documents, which is what this contest is encouraging people to do. In terms of SEO, inbound linking is never irrelevant.
I'm not knocking it, the internet runs on this kind of "cheap trick", and it will generate a ton of traffic and new users. I don't know if it will generate much good will towards Scribd.