Float iPhone app for one-stop on/offline reading, customized screen, sync, social sharing

Here's a new free iPhone app called Float by Scribd, a social publishing site I've long admired. Basically, the Float app aims to solve the problem of digital reading fragmentation — that pesky necessity to visit different sites and tolerate many different formats to read what you want to read. Float organizes the docs you want to read in a personalized feed – news, blogs, websites, documents – and does an amazing thing. It strips out all the clutter and presents it in plain text that you can customize (background, font sizes). That's right. No ads, no headers and footers, no website naviagation. Just the text, images, and hyperlinks. Yay!

I think it's a great idea and that readers and publishers are both going to be clamoring for more. They're floating a lot of content now, and adding stuff all the time, maybe even your site, book, blog… stay tuned.

Download Float from the iPhone app store and visit Float.com for more info. And here's the official press release.

Scribd Introduces Float– A Revolutionary Digital Reading Service

New iPhone, iPod Touch and web applications make it simpler to read news, blogs and documents from across the web

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–July 19, 2011– Scribd today introduced Float, a new application available for free from Apple's App Store that allows consumers to easily read content from more than 150 websites including The Associated Press, FORTUNE and PEOPLE in an all-new custom format.

Float users can consume and organize news, blogs and documents in one place while connecting with friends and readers to discover new interests and information on Twitter, Facebook and Scribd.

“Digital reading is fragmented,” Trip Adler, CEO and co-founder of Scribd. “There are different formats, devices, applications and paywalls for reading web content and we want to offer a better solution.”

Float was developed in proactive partnership with publishers in order to build long-term revenue opportunities and ensure readers access to the best content. Along with advertising, premium content from publications will begin rolling out later this year via a simple subscription plan.

Float is designed to work well for casual browsing as well as a deep diving into readers’ interests. Using new technology, text previously formatted for the web can now be easily read on any mobile device in a “floating text” reading experience, enabling users to zoom in on text and scroll left to right like the pages of a book or magazine. In addition, content is personalized to reading style and environment, including settings for direct sunlight and eye strain.

Float also includes:

Content from more than 150 popular websites and blogs, including Allrecipes.com, The Associated Press, The Atlantic, CBSNews.com, CHOW, CNET, Engadget, Entertainment Weekly, FORTUNE, HuffingtonPost, InStyle, PEOPLE, Salon, Scientific American, TheStreet, TechCrunch, TIME and WIRED
Floating Text that can move up and down like a browser or left to right like a book
A Reading list for offline reading
A Feed with reading recommendations from your friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter and Scribd
A Library that allows you to archive and organize all your reading by date, publisher and title
One-touch font magnification
A dozen customized reading styles including NightTime and Sunlight Reading
Two-click sharing back to Facebook, Twitter, Scribd or email.
Synchronization with all content to Float.com

Pricing and Availability
Float is available starting today as a product suite, including a web app, a web bookmarklet and an iPhone app available for free from Apple's App Store. Visit float.com to start getting carried away.

About Float
Float is a new digital reading service from Scribd that allows you to focus on what you’re reading, not how you’re reading. Designed for frequent online readers of news, blogs and published content, Float’s web and mobile apps are customized to your preferred reading style, distilling the reading experience from the clutter and noise of the online format. Personalized to your interests, integrated with social sharing features and offering a fluid experience across mobile, tablet and computer screens, Float makes it easy to transition between casually browsing and deeply diving into the broad array of topics that pique interest, inspire curiosity and capture the imagination.

About Scribd
Scribd is the largest social reading and publishing site in the world with more than 75 million readers each month. We’ve made it incredibly simple for anyone to share and discover informative, entertaining and original written content on the web and mobile devices. Our mission is to liberate the written word, to connect people and organizations with the information and ideas that matter most to them. Our innovative HTML5 document reader technology has lowered the barriers to publishing by enabling anyone to easily upload and share their work in any file format. Scribd is a venture-backed company based in San Francisco. For more information, please visit http://www.scribd.com/about.

###