It’s been one week since Scribd launched Float, its app for the iphone.
I was so pleased to be included as a suggested person to follow (which means, essentially, you can see what I am reading) and to have my new novel Finding Clarity available under Scribd’s Books and Lit (right above Peter Pan and Huck Finn.)
I’ve been playing around with the app for a week and have good things to report.
- First, I love the icon. The bright red balloon on the sky background really pops on my iphone. The graphic makes me want to go there.
- It's great that I can see my Scribd feed and follow Twitter and Facebook as well if I want. No need to have 3 different icons on your phone when it can all be combined under one “heading.”
- Float formats everything I could read on my computer, onto the iphone, so gone is the madness of having to try to read documents in a browser. Letters are large (and can become even larger if you wish) and Float offers many fun ways to read (in the dark; save your eyes; computer green; Gutenberg Bible font etc.)
- Swipe left to right and the pages stay neatly paginated. Scroll up and down if you prefer. Float knows where to go and what to do.
- The Favorites page is what makes Float the great coordinator of iphone apps. Social Feeds are listed at top (Scribd, Twitter and Facebook) followed by Websites marked by their colorful icons. A dozen can be listed (some come with the app and you can add more from lists of participating partners.) I’ve got Huffington Post next to Robert Reich, above the Daily Dish, across from the Smithsonian, which is poised next to Gawker and Talking Points Memo. News, gossip, literature: you choose your source and Float makes it very easy. And you can eliminate all those app icons from your iphone “desktop.”
- People is the next category on this sort of “home page.” I see many of the people I follow on Scribd and I can add more. For example, I am one of the people Float suggests you follow and I’ve met more there than I knew about from Scribd.
- My List shows you some of the articles that I have “bookmarked” and can read later “off line” if I wish. There is also my Library, which I can keep private, and my activities, which shows you what I’ve uploaded on Scribd on the computer.
- Perhaps the only problem I have, and it’s minor, is with the People section on my “Home” page, or Favorites page. I don’t know yet how to move the people I really want to follow to that page, and let the others, who seem to be programmed in there, float into the distance.
- Same with my Websites. As on an iphone, I would like to be able to press the icon, have it shimmy and shake, thereby allowing me to drag it to the top line or move it next to a similar category. It’s very possible that this is possible, but I’m not sure how.
- One of the delightful things I discovered is that I can “float” anything I’m reading to my other social media, that is, Scribd – the online feed – and Twitter. In fact, I was thrilled when I found my comment and the writer’s response on the Scribd feed, for something I sent from Float on my iphone.
The Scribd folks should be commended for months of hard work and stellar engineering on Float. I’ve long wanted to be able to read articles while standing in line at the bank or waiting for a BART train. Now, I can pick up on a novel (including my own!), an article or even the Scribd feed.
For more on the Float launch at the Braintech conference in Aspen, click HERE, HERE, HERE or HERE.
Thank you Scribd for floating us into the future!
I was so pleased to be included as a suggested person to follow (which means, essentially, you can see what I am reading) and to have my new novel Finding Clarity available under Scribd’s Books and Lit (right above Peter Pan and Huck Finn.)
I’ve been playing around with the app for a week and have good things to report.
- First, I love the icon. The bright red balloon on the sky background really pops on my iphone. The graphic makes me want to go there.
- It's great that I can see my Scribd feed and follow Twitter and Facebook as well if I want. No need to have 3 different icons on your phone when it can all be combined under one “heading.”
- Float formats everything I could read on my computer, onto the iphone, so gone is the madness of having to try to read documents in a browser. Letters are large (and can become even larger if you wish) and Float offers many fun ways to read (in the dark; save your eyes; computer green; Gutenberg Bible font etc.)
- Swipe left to right and the pages stay neatly paginated. Scroll up and down if you prefer. Float knows where to go and what to do.
- The Favorites page is what makes Float the great coordinator of iphone apps. Social Feeds are listed at top (Scribd, Twitter and Facebook) followed by Websites marked by their colorful icons. A dozen can be listed (some come with the app and you can add more from lists of participating partners.) I’ve got Huffington Post next to Robert Reich, above the Daily Dish, across from the Smithsonian, which is poised next to Gawker and Talking Points Memo. News, gossip, literature: you choose your source and Float makes it very easy. And you can eliminate all those app icons from your iphone “desktop.”
- People is the next category on this sort of “home page.” I see many of the people I follow on Scribd and I can add more. For example, I am one of the people Float suggests you follow and I’ve met more there than I knew about from Scribd.
- My List shows you some of the articles that I have “bookmarked” and can read later “off line” if I wish. There is also my Library, which I can keep private, and my activities, which shows you what I’ve uploaded on Scribd on the computer.
- Perhaps the only problem I have, and it’s minor, is with the People section on my “Home” page, or Favorites page. I don’t know yet how to move the people I really want to follow to that page, and let the others, who seem to be programmed in there, float into the distance.
- Same with my Websites. As on an iphone, I would like to be able to press the icon, have it shimmy and shake, thereby allowing me to drag it to the top line or move it next to a similar category. It’s very possible that this is possible, but I’m not sure how.
- One of the delightful things I discovered is that I can “float” anything I’m reading to my other social media, that is, Scribd – the online feed – and Twitter. In fact, I was thrilled when I found my comment and the writer’s response on the Scribd feed, for something I sent from Float on my iphone.
The Scribd folks should be commended for months of hard work and stellar engineering on Float. I’ve long wanted to be able to read articles while standing in line at the bank or waiting for a BART train. Now, I can pick up on a novel (including my own!), an article or even the Scribd feed.
For more on the Float launch at the Braintech conference in Aspen, click HERE, HERE, HERE or HERE.
Thank you Scribd for floating us into the future!
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