A screenshot of the Papershare content library
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — While Facebook and LinkedIn are led by interaction with people, social content sharing platform PaperShare is led by content. The platform allows users to join the network for free, upload as much content as they want (ranging from blog posts to audio files to whitepapers) and follow and connect with other users, as well as companies on the site.
Papershare CEO David Greschler says when he shares a link about virtualization on his Facebook page, it usually is followed by rude comments by his friends who don’t understand what virtualization is, but with PaperShare, he is able to connect with people who are interested content related to the cloud and virtualization industry.
“What makes PaperShare so unique is its really primarily about connecting to content and then connecting with the people and the companies behind the content,” Greschler says in a phone interview with the WHIR. “The whole reason people come together is because they are commonly interested in one topic.”
Doug Brown, co-founder and CTO of Papershare, showed Greschler the project in April 2011 after working on it for sixteen months.
“When I saw it I realized this is really revolutionary in that it was great way for people to easily and quickly find very deep and rich content within a specific industry but also then connect with people,” Greschler says.
Now, after three months, PaperShare has 31,000 content shares.
Greschler and Brown have known each other for about eight years. Prior to PaperShare Greschler was a co-founder and president/VP of marketing of Softricity which sold to Microsoft in 2006. After the acquisition he ran the virtualization and cloud computing group at Microsoft for five years. Brown is the founder of DABCC, a technical virtualization website. He says he developed PaperShare with the idea of social in mind.
“Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, we love those things, they’re a great use,” Brown says. “One, they’re about people, like David said, and two, there’s just a ton of noise in those environments. By flipping that paradigm and making it about content first what we’re able to do is allow users to find content that they’re extremely interested in and then find the people that they’re interested in on top of that. In that network we also placed the companies and the integrators that are in the community so its not just about people and content it’s about the entire ecosystem.”
Visually, PaperShare looks like a lot of social networking websites, with a profile picture, “wall”, and other features including private messaging. A users’ content library looks like the iBooks app, with content lined up on “shelves.” There is a wide variety of content that can be uploaded including apps, ebooks, videos and more. Users tag content when it is uploaded, and can see the top content being shared across the platform. Users are also able to read reviews, see related content, find out more about the person who uploaded it as well as what companies the user may be following.
While users are able to join PaperShare for free, companies and systems integrators can join by paying a yearly subscription fee. Companies can then make a profile page, list employees that are members of PaperShare, and connect with other people. When a company adds new content, its followers can see it. He says that 30 percent of people who follow a company read content within 24 hours of it being uploaded because of this opt-in process.
In addition, companies have access to analytics to help them understand what kind of people are looking at their content, and allow them to reach out to them via direct messages. Other companies, like Microsoft for example, have set up groups where they host Q&As about their content.
Content can be automatically Tweeted, and PaperShare provides Facebook and LinkedIn integration as well.
“PaperShare, big picture, is this concept about merging people with content and using it to pull people together so they can connect with companies and other people,” Greschler says.
Greschler says that because of the volume of content being shared, it is able to detect trends much like Twitter. In the first few months he says they have seen three distinct trends emerge: virtual desktop infrastructure, hybrid cloud and licensing.
While the main focus for PaperShare at the moment is cloud computing and virtualization, both Greschler and Brown see the potential for PaperShare to work across industries including web hosting, healthcare and finance.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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