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Issuu is like Scribd's hotter cousin

By Josh Lowensohn – February 4, 2008, 2:33 PM PST

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One of my favorite document sharing services is Scribd. However, there's another document sharing service that has been around since early 2006, and boy if it doesn't have some good things going for it. It's called Issuu (pronounced "issue") and it's all about documents. In this case, it's only the ones in PDF format. Users can put together compilations of content and share them as they would photos or videos on other hosting services.

Issuu's big appeal is its media viewer, which presents the content like a real magazine. We've seen this in countless other sites and services, including Conde Nast's Flip.com, Adobe's Digital Editions software, Idio, and the HyperComics viewer, but Issuu manages to do it in a way that doesn't detract from the experience. Issuu in many ways makes reading online publications more enjoyable.

Each digital book is set on a simple gray background. There are little thumbnails, which are given a little zoom treatment when you mouse over them (akin to the OS X dock). The best part is that you can go into full screen mode, or simply zoom around with your mouse cursor to view each page in greater detail. It's completely intuitive, and great for documents with a lot of art (of which there are many).

Scribd still has the upper hand for written text documents, as its search is a fair bit more robust. However, it doesn't present highly visual content with as much flair. With Issuu you're stuck to PDF documents, which is a far cry from Scribd's compatibility with over a dozen popular file formats. It's still worth checking out Issuu, if only for its viewer, which is truly best of breed and a joy to use.

I've embedded a sample Issuu below. Click on it to get the full reading experience.

 
Category: Content and publishing, Productivity and business, Social network and groups, Web design tools Tags: Issuu, Scribd, document sharing, graphic design
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by neworldgold May 10, 2008 1:50 PM PDT
Researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania reported today that students who participate in high school sports or individual physical activity are less likely to smoke than their classmates. The new study indicates that the protective effect of participation extends at least three years beyond graduation. The Penn team discovered, however, that girls do not derive the same level of protection from school sports as do boys. Daniel Rodriguez, PhD, Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, reported that an adolescent?s self-assessment and sense of physical competence was an important aspect in smoking prevention. Students who feel successful continue to participate and are less likely to start negative behaviors. ?I visualize this as a fork in the road,? Rodriguez said. ?If you are successful, then you continue doing sports. If you are not successful, then you are now in need of other reinforcement and start looking for other things. In that case, things like smoking become open to you.? Given the data, Rodriguez recommends that parents make an effort to get their children involved in organized activities ? whether it is a physical sport, like track and field, or some other organized activity, like the chess team ? and that they teach them how to properly evaluate their own skills. It is important that children learn to compare their current skills or performance to their past performance and not to that of their teammates or opponents. That way they can feel good about their skills, even if they are not the best at something. plavix tenormin nolvadex crestor pravachol mevacor zocor actos amaryl avandia glucophage glucotrol lasix protonix zantac aciphex prevacid prilosec breast success enhance9 euphoria perfume female rx oil female rx plus hoodia gordonii hoodia patch human growth agent Rodriguez, PhD, and colleagues in the NIH-funded Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania have shown previously that adolescents who are physically active are about one-third less likely to start smoking than their less active peers. Now, in the first of two studies that Rodriguez will present at the American Association for Cancer Research?s ?Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research? meeting in Philadelphia, the investigators followed 985 young adults from 12th grade through the third year after high school. As expected, the young adults who participated in high school sports or individual physical activity were significantly less likely smoke than their non-active peers. Physical activity reduced the likelihood of smoking 12% by improving the adolescents? perception of their physical self. By contrast, team sports reduced smoking 18% by improving their perception of their physical self and reducing contact with peers who smoke. Remarkably, the benefit of participation was still evident three years after graduation.
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