14 DAY TRIAL // Scribd, the document sharing service, has become a very popular site, with traffic numbers to back it, but, as per usual on the Internet, traffic doesn't necessarily translate into revenue. The biggest problem for the site is user retention, with visitors coming to the site, usually from a search, viewing or downloading the document they're interested in and then leaving. So Scribd has done something we're seeing more and more lately, namely adding a number of social features in the hopes of creating a community.
The new site brings a number of tools to make users stay for longer and come back to the site. The changes are visible from the start with the new homepage featuring an activity stream of your friends, similar to Facebook or FriendFeed, so you can see what they liked or uploaded. Twitter couldn't be left out either and there is now the possibility to follow other Scribd users, very much like on the microblogging service.
With the new social focus in mind, the profiles have also changed, with more information about the users and follower stats but also an activity feed with info on what they've been reading or liked. None of this is revolutionary, but it doesn't need to be as the site will remain a document sharing site at its core. The aim is not to create a new social network – there are plenty of those already – but a community around the shared content.
Scribd has in fact seen a big dip in traffic numbers, losing over 50 percent of it in one month, but the owners say this was all planned and part of the revamp. Still, while it may be good for the site in the long run, the drop may be a little bigger than they had anticipated.
“We made some changes that will have a short-term impact on traffic. Primarily: 1) improving our copyright filter, which keeps unauthorized content off the site and 2) reducing the aggressiveness of our SEO, which reduces total traffic in the near term but increases the relevancy of Scribd links in search engine results 3) trending down typical in the summer time — we experienced this last year at this time and other major sites (YouTube, Google Books) are experiencing the same,” Trip Adler, Scribd CEO, told TechCrunch.