docstoc

This morning Zoho launched Zoho Docs which provides a folder structure for managing and editing your documents. This afternoon Docstoc is announcing MyDocs which is very similar in nature. Docstoc MyDocs provides a way to store all of your documents online and view them within the Docstoc service. There are folders, ability to preview documents, a full screen mode when needed and the ability to set documents as public or private.

To make the MyDocs feature easier to use and keep synchronized, Docstoc is also launching Sync. Once you install Docstoc Sync, a folder will be placed on your desktop. Any documents inside that folder will automatically be uploaded (or removed) to Docstoc providing a valuable backup and the ability to browse your documents from anywhere.

These new launches make sense for Docstoc as the more documents they have in their overall public repository, the more users they can grab from Google on search queries. Users coming from search queries could become trial users of Docstoc and eventually move into the loyal category.

Online document hosting service Docstoc is out with a product update this evening. The update allows anyone who uploads private documents on Docstoc the ability to closely track and monitor usage of the documents. While Docstoc is known for public document sharing, this new set of monitoring tools allows a content creator to more closely track who is viewing the documents, email infomation, and the ability to lock documents for viewing online.

This seems much better than emailing around a PDF and potentially having it leave the circle. Users who aren't registered on Docstoc get prompted to enter their personal information before viewing the requested document. As more and more online services tap our personal and confidential information (i.e. any Saas player), it will be interesting to watch the discussion around security and privacy.

Here's Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar explaining how the new private document monitoring works:

Document sharing service Docstoc is out with a potentially major upgrade today. The new functionality is called OneClick and allows you to share documents via email no matter how large the files are. I've embedded a video that describes the service below. OneClick is a simple desktop widget that you select when you have large documents to share. After the documents are uploaded to Docstoc, the OneClick application opens your default email application and puts the links directly into the email. It's really simple to use.

Adam Ostrow notes that this new utility will help drive user adoption of Docstoc and I completely agree - this is why I noted that it's a major upgrade above. Not only will this drive user adoption, it will also help Docstoc to increase their keyword rich content index. While it appears that documents uploaded with OneClick show as private by default, Docstoc would be smart to push users to change the privacy settings on their next login.

The only filetypes that are supported with Docstoc's OneClick are .doc, .pdf, .xls, .ppt. This may limit the tool's functionality as other large file email replacement tools like YouSendIt allow you to send any file type. Will the casual user know when to use DocStoc and when not to? Mark Hendrickson has the same concerns regarding file type. Frankly they should allow any file type to be uploaded and just show the files as a list rather than showing them in the Docstoc player. That'd be hot.

The document sharing battle between Scribd and Docstoc is great to watch as it's forcing both to continue to innovate and that's a good thing for all of us. Check out our interview with Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar.

Online document sharing service Docstoc has announced a new Series B round of funding in the amount of $3.25 million, bringing their total funding to $4 million. The funding round was led by Rustic Canyon Partners. Docstoc differentiates itself from the other document sharing services by focusing on professional documents.

The company is also announcing a new advertising program called the Content Partnership Program (CPP) which allows large content providers to own the advertising space on pages and generate new increemental revenue. Here's an example of the CPP in action.

Check out our interview with Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar.

Online social shopping community Wishpot has announced the closing of a $1 million Series A investment round. The round was led by Monster Venture Partners. Other investors in the round include H-Farm, an Italian Internet development group, as well as existing investors including Adrian Hanauer. Wishpot has developed a hosted solution for tracking personal wish list entries across any website on the internet. Wishpot will launch outside the U.S. later in 2008. Wishpot was founded in 2006 in Seattle by veterans of Microsoft.

Enterprise real-time Web solutions provider Kaazing has announced a $1 million round of angel financing. The company hasn't listed the investors but does note that they are "high-profile Silicon Valley private investors." Kaazing will use the funds to expand its development team and to increase marketing efforts.

Using Kaazing's Java-based technology, they claim to make it easy to build robust rich Internet applications including online trading systems, online betting and games.

Docstoc was one of the companies we covered at TechCrunch40 in September. Docstoc is a place to share professional documents and they publicly launched last week. They have a contest running where the person who uploads the most documents can win an iPod Touch. To learn more about Docstoc, I spoke with CEO Jason Nazar. Our transcript is below.

Allen: What's Docstoc?

Jason: Docstoc is a user generated community for sharing professional documents. Users can find and share legal, business, technology, educational, and creative documents for free.

Docstoc provides a one-stop source for professional documents that can be shared freely, discovered quickly, and organized for easy access. The site makes it easy to find, share, and access any type of content. Users can easily search by categories or by keywords, filter search results by views, downloads, ratings and comments, preview the documents online, and download or store content in online personal file folders for free.

Each user on Docstoc has a profile to facilitate sharing and conversations - social/professional networking is geared around content instead of just contacts. Professionals can receive immediate and objective feedback on the value of their documents and also forge potential business relationships and referral traffic.

Docstoc integrates the most useful features of private online file storage with the ability to store, categorize, and share content found anywhere on the Web. Users can upload their files and mark them public or private, categorize docs in their own personalized directories, organize the files into folders, send documents to their online storage, and share with trusted contacts or the entire community. People can also request content, by keywords or categories, and have it delivered via email.

In addition, users can store their documents in their own personal online folders for anytime, anywhere access.

Continue reading the interview insider »

docstoc was one of the companies who presented at TC40 in the crowdsourcing session. Check out my notes here and here. The company defines themselves as, "Docstoc.com is the first online community for a vast quantity of high quality professional documents, forms, templates, presentations, and spreadsheets. Users can find and share any document and organize and access their files with online storage for access anytime, anywhere."

While I work on a full profile of the company, docstoc Founder Jason Nazar has provided us with 1,000 invites!

To grab one, just register using the invite code "centernetworks" and drop me a line after you test out docstoc. Thanks to Jason and the team for sending us the invites!