LinkedIn is selling SlideShare to Scribd – a digital library leader for books, audiobooks, and other professional works.
“Today, we’re announcing that digital library leader Scribd has acquired LinkedIn’s SlideShare.
Scribd’s mission is to change the way the world reads by providing people with unparalleled access to the world’s best content.”
Scribd specializes in hosting millions of user-uploaded documents such as study guides, business templates, self-published stories, books, and more.
Scribd will take over operation of Slideshare on September 24th.
The acquisition includes Slideshare’s 100 million users, its upload and hosting tools, and its entire archive of presentations and documents.
For Slideshare users that means accounts and uploaded content are all safe. Nothing is getting removed.
For LinkedIn users, the company says it will still offer the ability for users to upload, share, and discuss documents.
LinkedIn offers these parting words as it says goodbye to SlideShare:
“LinkedIn acquired SlideShare in May 2012 at a time when it was becoming clear that professionals were using LinkedIn for more than making professional connections.
Over the last eight years, the SlideShare team, product, and community has helped shape the content experience on LinkedIn.
We’ve incorporated the ability to upload, share, and discuss documents on LinkedIn.”
Statement From Scribd on Acquiring SlideShare
Scribd currently offers over 100 million documents, including professionally published works and documents uploaded by users.
With the acquisition of SlideShare, Scribd is adding over 40 million presentations to its digital library.
Trip Adler, co-founder and CEO of Scribd, offers the following statement:
“Our acquisition of SlideShare is a major step towards creating the world’s largest digital library.
Scribd has accumulated a unique collection of user-generated and professional content that we make available to our readers via personalized recommendations, and the addition of presentations from the SlideShare community advances our vision.
It allows us to continue diversifying our offering while driving even more readers to the books, audiobooks, magazines, and other professionally published works in our digital library.”
The acquisition is effective as of today.
Although, as mentioned previously, Scribd will not officially take over operation of SlideShare until September 24th.
After September 24th, SlideShare users will still be able to access the service through SlideShare.net and the mobile app.
Other Details For SlideShare Users
For those not familiar with Scribd – it’s a subscription service that offers unlimited access to its entire library of content for $9.99 per month.
Don’t let that concern you too much, because SlideShare will remain a free service.
Here are some other details about the acquisition that are important for existing SlideShare users to know about.
- Content uploaded to SlideShare can only be viewed on SlideShare.
- Presentations cannot be accessed on Scribd.
- A subscription to Scribd is not necessary to continue using SlideShare.
- SlideShare accounts cannot be used on Scribd.
Those are all the details available at this time.
From the sounds of it, the two sites will continue to operate independent of each other.
That means SlideShare users who have no interest in Scribd will not be forced into adopting a new platform.
There’s no word on any major changes coming to either site, though it’s reasonable to assume there are plans in the works.
Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed.
Sources: LinkedIn Pressroom, Scribd
