Welcome to the PaperShare Revolution!
I’m very happy to announce the official release of the PaperShare Social Content Network for our first industry: Cloud computing & Virtualization
I want to thank the thousands of Beta users and welcome our new users to what I feel is a revolution in resource consumption and sharing!
What is PaperShare and why is it so revolutionary?
To answer this I would like to give you some background on what went into building and designing PaperShare and explain why you will find PaperShare to be the ultimate in finding, sharing, and meeting the best of the best!
In January 1999, I built my first web site (DABCC.com) with the simple goal of sharing information. I wanted to create a site where people could come to find the latest and greatest resources. If you remember the web in early 1999 you will remember a very static place. The information available in those days was sparse and like today scattered all over the place. The goal for DABCC was simple, to create, find, and assemble the best of the best in one place so you don’t have to go look for it yourself.
Over the years DABCC.com grew to be a powerhouse of a site and has served up hundreds of millions of pages to tens of millions of users with stellar results, but in the beginning of 2010 I started thinking there has to be a better way. Even with all the enhancements in web technologies over the 11 years since DABCC.com was built most sites and the experience of finding and sharing killer content is still more or less a static one with almost zero deep human interaction. Of course there are comments and the ability to “email a friend” but whom are the people leaving those comments? Are you similar to them? Is “emailing a friend” the best we can do? I wanted to update this experience and take resource sharing to the next level, one that is quicker, easier, and one where you can dive down into the people who download and leave comments to find out more about them and their interests! Heck, I wanted to leap frog everyone out there and bring to you resource sharing 3.0!
I think one of the best ways to explain where PaperShare came from is to tell you about three books I read prior to starting to think about building a better mouse trap. Just prior to starting what would become PaperShare I read the following three books that left their mark on PaperShare and helped fine tune PaperShare’s basic design goals: “What Google Would Do?, “REWORK”, and “Accidental Billionaires”.
The book “REWORK” taught me to make PaperShare simple and I mean, “Simple”. If you don’t need it, delete it. I wanted to create a place where it is simple to find the resources you want and at the same time find the people and companies interested in doing the same things you are interested in. I wanted to do this in as little amount of clicks possible! REWORK also stresses signal over noise and this is very important to PaperShare. I wanted to reduce the mass amount of noise you face today and create a place where you can dive deep in to a subject area and find the information you want within seconds and not be bothered with miscellaneous chit chat about things you just don’t care about. REWORK definitely left its impact on PaperShare and will for years to come.
The second book, “What Google Would Do?” is an amazing book that talks about how Google changed the web and made all of our lives simpler and better by creating a network were it was not about the source but about providing people a network to find information. PaperShare was designed from the group up to provide a content centric platform for users & companies to share resources anywhere, anyplace, at anytime.
The last book I read as I started designing the base ideas for what would become PaperShare was the amazing book about the founding of Facebook called “Accidental Billionaires”. When I showed the first prototype for PaperShare to a friend of mine he said, “It would be great if I could share out this content with my customers.” That simple comment changed it all and because I was reading Accidental Billionaire and social was in my head the final ingredient was added: Social.
All this being said, I wanted to create a place based on the follow guidelines:
- Allow users to easily find the resources they are looking for. Not just through old style search but also by categorizing all content, stripping out all noise and leaving the user with only a few finely tuned check boxes to click through in seconds.
- Add social-by-design to the core of the idea to allow you to find like-minded people and companies also interested in the exact same content / subject areas you are interested in.
- Reduce all noise and cross talk.
- Make it pretty and simple.
- Allow the world the ability to share their amazing content with others through the PaperShare network while extending their blogs and web sites with their content and others found on this new content network.
- Allow users a storage repository so they have one location where they store their business resources and easily get to them anywhere, anytime, from any device.
- Make it FREE for users!!!
Thus was born PaperShare!
To do this I simply flipped the social paradigm by putting the content first vs. the person. Nobody has done this. Other social networks lead with people, thus introducing tons of noise that consists of content, messages, pictures and videos that just do not make sense and/or is not relevant to you. The byproduct of this flip is to allow you to find the resources you are looking for and at the same time the professionals and companies interested in the same. Not the typical social experience where I’m bored to death with pictures of your kids (no offence to your children but I’m interested in resources, not birthday parties. I have Facebook already). The simple flip sets us up perfectly for achieving all of the above requirements, by design.
On PaperShare we categorize all content, people, integrators, groups, and messages so users can quickly check a few very descriptive checkboxes and quickly drill down to find the resources (apps, documents, presentations, videos, audio, people, integrators and companies) they want.
Users, companies and integrators can share their content and then follow each other so what’s new is delivered directly to them so they don’t have to go looking for it. Again, taking the traditional idea of posting content and upgrading it to become social-by-design to allow people to follow other users, companies, integrators, and groups so what’s new is brought directly to them via email and notification so they don’t even have to visit the site. PaperShare brings the information you are looking for to you and if you like it you will click and download it, share it, and much more. It is that simple! That clean! That powerful!
PaperShare makes your other social networks better through built-in integration, such as our Twitter and LinkedIn integration. For example, when you find amazing content and you have enabled Twitter or LinkedIn integration, PaperShare will post a simple Tweet or message informing your friends about it so you can spread the love, the knowledge. As with all features on PaperShare, social integration is 100% configurable. A user can opt-in to Tweeting something they add to your library, or follow a company, or create a new connection, or read a paper or download an application, and many more. We wanted to make sure you can share but you can always retain your privacy when required. It’s up to you by simply clicking a few checkboxes. That is what PaperShare is all about, quick, easy, and all through simple checkboxes and buttons.
Oh, as you might have noticed, I talk about resource sharing, not any particular type of resource consumption and sharing… This is by design too. Today you will find PaperShare to be about Cloud and Virtualization but truly PaperShare is a network of vertical industries where you will be able to do all of the above no matter your area of interest. The simple idea is if you are interested in Cloud / Virtualization and databases then that is what you will see. We reduce the nose so you are not bothered.
I can go on-and-on but the proof is in using PaperShare. Although PaperShare has been in the works for a while now we have only just begun. On my blog I will keep you up to speed on what’s new on PaperShare. I have tons of ideas and new features will be added to PaperShare all the time. My goal is and will always be very simple, to make the best experience for finding and sharing information as possible for today and tomorrow, while reducing the noise associated and allowing you, the user, to configure the network as you see fit for you!
We do this by making information social! This is truly a revolution, the old way it out, the user centric social mindset just does not work, and the social content network is the solution. The revolution is here and it is called PaperShare!!
Join now and join the revolution in resource sharing!
Thank you and happy PaperSharing!
Douglas Brown
CTO & Founder
PaperShare, Inc.
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