Edocr, a smaller competitor to other document sharing startups like DocStoc and Scribd, re-launches today with new features and an API, after a long time off-radar.
Eschewing the publisher focus of Issuu, or the broad business focus on DocStoc, the boot-strapped Edocr focuses on corporates and enterprises. So for instance, companies can upload all their public-facing documents, whether they be company reports, press releases, guidance documents, you name it. Admittedly the slightly dull-but-necessary focus is not going to set the world alight, but with plenty of enterprises still getting their heads around the basics of blogging, RSS and even social networks like Twitter, edocr is a simple way for companies to share their PDFs without being lumped alongside a pirated copy of a Harry Potter novel. New features include an improved design, bulk uploading of documents, an API, document categories, better search and the ability to auto-tweet to a Twitter account when new documents get uploaded. Edocr’s Groups feature lets you allocate a bunch of docs to a group. You can also tag up documents with any keyword, which pulls all the docs on any subject in, similar to DocStoc.
The business model is a fremium one. Accounts are free but premium accounts delete advertising on a company’s page. Although pricing is in UK pounds right now (£25 a month, £145 per 6 months or £250 per annum) they are looking at launching US pricing as well, since a third of the site’s traffic is US-based. The site has the usual features like rating, tagging and embedding flash versions of the document in other sites.
Howwever, UK-based Edocr still has a long way to go. Scribd is the largest global player in document sharing by traffic, userbase and number of documents. Docstoc, the second largest, like edocr, also targets the business market, but it splits AdSense revenues 50/50 with anyone who uploads documents and wants to opt into the service. DocStoc has over 3 million documents uploaded and 1.6 million unique visitors a month in the U.S., according to comScore. Needless to say Edocr is way below that right now. Then there is Twidox in Germany, which also concentrates on organisations, though largely German ones right now.
And if edocr is ever going to be able to compete it’s going to need to make more of its features appealing to this “niche” of businesses that want document sharing. Edocr is closer to Issuu in its concentration on enterprise customers, but Issuu Pro users are also professional magazine and newspaper publishers. Edocr’s concentration on corporates only may not be enough. Plus, Issuu charges a low $19 per month.
It’s to be hoped that edocr, which launched in October 2007, has put its somewhat erratic performance to date behind it now that former co-founder Rhys Jones has exited the business (amicably I gather) and sole remaining founder Manoj Ranaweera has full control to set strategy. I can see edocr being potentially successful in the UK, but a question hangs over its ability to scale internationally, unless, perhaps, it launches a US service soon.
A can of http://blatanttruth.org/turd-polish.gif springs to mind?
I find it very hard to see how this will compete with Scribd. Also whats with the name? I get Scribd but Edocr? Am I missing something.
Possibly its a great product but its not different enough for me.
Hi Rob,
edocr stands for electronic document repository.
Our aim is to work with businesses (whilst offering free accounts to those who may not wish to benefit from value added functionality), allowing them to realise the true power of documents, e.g. documents as a sales lead generator.
Best regards
Manoj
Good luck with your venture but as Rob points out, the name is kind of off-putting. First thing I read was Edocr = Eee-dee-oh-cur, which rhymes with “mediocre”. Sorry about that but that must have come out in focus groups discussion.
Speaking of scalability and international appeal, I’d like to throw Calaméo’s hat in the ring (http://www.calameo.com). The Paris-based document publishing service is available in 7 fully localised versions (just recently added German, Japanese, Portuguese and Italian).
Pro-user subscriptions with full design customisation, API access and more start at 12€/month.
(Disclosure: I help Calaméo with PR and social media relations. See http://www.oseon.com/news/calameo/ (German))
If they are really going for enterprise customers, charging 25 GBP a month might scare them away. That’s right: it’s too little. For a really good product, with the right security, robustness, after sales support etc, they should be charging a lot more. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a linear correlation between price and demand until they hit the correct pricing (which is a LOT higher than 25/month).
Shafqat
We launched today our first commercial application in the form of a business directory. See http://www.edocr.com/organisation. There are number of other applications in the pipeline with much higher priced version which would appeal to larger clients. In the meantime, we believe our current proposition will appeal to most companies.
Best regards
Manoj
I don’t even know where to click on the home page and what the heck I am looking at.
Is it me, or is the UI / EX kind of confusing?