We’d like to share a trick with alumni magazine publishers that will help you make your publication “mobile friendly” in a couple of very simple (free!) steps. To do this, we’re going to use a great tool called Scribd. In their own words, “Scribd is a social publishing site, where tens of millions of people share original writings and documents. Scribd’s vision is to liberate the written word.”
We love Scribd because the service converts uploaded documents into a format that is viewable on a variety of different devices – mobile, laptops or desktop computers. It is sort of like the YouTube of print publishing. The reading experience is especially good on the iPad.
By completing the following steps, Scribd will enable you to take a step in the right direction toward mobile alumni engagement.
1) Create a pdf version of your alumni magazine.
2) Upload the pdf to Scribd.
3) Enter your e-mail address to “register” for Scribd (free, no strings attached)
4) Use the Scribd URL and open your document from an iPhone, Android, iPad, etc.
5) Be wowed by a great mobile reading experience!
Scribd is used by Allison Maloney ’06 and the communications team at Siena College. Send the following URL to a mobile device and you’ll get a sneak peak at what a “mobile friendly” version of your alumni magazine could look like!
Are there other services that offer a similar experience?
Ever True!
Brent