[axod]

I disagree.

ONE person decides to use scribd to show some text on techcrunch, and suddenly the whole readership of techcrunch are "users" of scribd? Measuring success in terms of pageviews in a passive widget isn't a good measure.

[Mazy]

I highly doubt comscore is claiming to be tracking embed/widget traffic. Those numbers are supposed to be for the site itself.

They are quantified, and quantcast shows the vast majority of their traffic is to their destination: http://www.quantcast.com/scribd.com

see scribd.com vs The Scribd Network

[axod]

True, so people are linking instead of embedding. But the point is the same... If one person makes the decision to link to scribd instead of the pdf, and 100 people follow that link, it doesn't really mean 100 people value the service.

[zain]

The traffic isn't just from people following links. What about the people uploading 50,000 documents every day?

Source: Scribd says so, according to washingtonpost http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12...

[axod]

True, although I'd guess a fair amount is webmasters trying to cross promote their content. Seems like if you own a porn site, you may as well post some "tasters" to scribd with your web address on, etc etc

[mattmaroon]

That's true and so was your original argument, and both are true of YouTube as well. That doesn't make their traffic any less impressive. It's just using good viral spread mechanisms.

[mattmaroon]

How about the 50k documents uploaded every day? Can you really question that Scribd is a product that a lot of people want to use?

[axod]

From a quick look at the "most recent" page:

  20 docs per page, 50 pages covers last 18 hours.
  =1,000 docs in last 18 hours
  =approx 1,333/day

Maybe that page isn't showing every document, but I don't see why it wouldn't. And sure, it's new years, but even so...

Also you can't deny its used by webmasters promoting their websites....Posting endless tips etc with their link at the bottom. Take a look at some of the recently posted docs.

[mattmaroon]

I don't believe they'd claim 50k a day if it were 1.33k. Something is wrong there.