Scribd Now Has Unlimited Access To Publications Such As Fortune, Time

Scribd is a service that offers people access to e-books, audio books, and documents for a monthly subscription fee of $8.99. Now, the company is adding unlimited access too to an additional list of magazines. There are eight new publications in all, including popular titles such as Time, People, Fortune, Money, New York, and Bloomberg Businessweek. Subscribers will be pleased to know that content from these magazines have been optimized for browsing on mobile devices. What’s more, Scribd is also looking to add more new magazines in the next few weeks. When reading content from the magazines, Scribd subscribers not only get to read a specific article from one publication, but also are served related content from other magazines, and even receive recommendations for related e-books, audio books, and documents.

With regards to its relationship with the publications, the arrangement is that Scribd will be paying them either via a flat licensing fee or depending on the number of articles browsed. As for the subscribers, they get to have unlimited access to the new list of publications and will no changes in the usual $8.99 a month they are paying on a monthly basis for their subscription.

Scribd is clearly ramping up its efforts to expand the content it is offering. In the industry, Scribd’s fiercest rival is perhaps Kindle Unlimited (by Amazon), which costs $9.99 a month per subscription. Kindle Unlimited currently provides access to over 1 million e-books, as well as audio books and a rotating catalog of over 30 publications, including also Time and People.

But it is no secret that the field Scribd is in is particularly tough for players. Oyster and Entitle are a pair of companies that once competed with Scribd, but these services have since thrown in their towels. To Scribd’s credit, it does try to be more dynamic, shifting from one that provides users with an all they can read package to something that resembles a hybrid service, for instance offering a deal that treats customers to a trio of e-books and an audio book from its library. Scribd’s users also enjoy unlimited access to a smaller selection of rotating titles picked a monthly basis by the company’s own crew of editors.

Needless to say, some of the added magazines expressed some enthusiasm with Scribd’s latest move. The most obvious advantage for these new titles is the added exposure, and for those already established, like Time and People, they can treat this Scribd deal as sort of a way to test the waters.