Microsoft owned LinkedIn has recently announced it is selling SlideShare to Scribd which is similar presentation & document hosting and sharing service.
Breif introduction about SlideShare & Scribd
SlideShare is document sharing platform founded by Rashmi Sinha, Jonathan Boutelle, and Amit Ranjan in October 2006 and later LinkedIn acquired SlideShare in May 2012 in $119 Million deal. SlideShare allows users to upload Presentations and embed them in any website.
Scribd is also document hosting & sharing platform which allows more formats than SlideShare. They call themselves e-book and audiobook subscription service and have similar services as to SlideShare.
LinkedIn Selling SlideShare to Scribd
As per blog posted by LinkedIn Corporate Communications team, nothing will change on user’s prospective. SlideShare will remain separate website and existing mobile app will continue to work as earlier.
Scribd acquired SlideShare to increase their portfolio of documents/data. However, it is still not announced and unknown that how integration between two platform will be done, for now SlideShare will keep working as separate product under Scribd management.
Changes for users after sale
Only difference will be the ownership of data & technology will be of Scribd instead of Microsoft/LinkedIn. Scribd will get control over 100 Million users of SlideShare, Hosting & Uploading Tools, existing archive of data and other business part of SlideShare.
Applicable date for Sale
SlideShare has notified their customers via email telling them LinkedIn is selling SlideShare to Scribd and all content will the as it is. The sale will be applicable from September 24, 2020.
Scribd will begin operating the SlideShare business on September 24, 2020. Your presentations and activity will remain on SlideShare.net and on the SlideShare mobile app, so there is no action needed from you to keep your content online. As of that date, Scribd will manage your SlideShare account and any content you may have on SlideShare, and Scribd’s General Terms of Use and Privacy Policy will apply. If you wish to opt out, please close your SlideShare account.
Text from email.
If you have account on SlideShare and do not wish to be part of Scribd, you can download backup of your document and close your account. Else, your content will continue to be online and all other embeds will be working fine.
Both Scribd and LinkedIn has posted the update on their official website.
