Linking to a PDF is so yesterday: embed the document instead
Over at TechCrunch, there is an interesting conversation going on around Adobe Lab’s failed project to place contextual ads in PDFs. The idea initially seems reasonable. Why didn’t it work?
PDFs are an ingrained part of business processes, easy to create and consistent to view. As a private means of transmission of pre-formatted data, PDFs are still a great solution. In private exchanges of data, however, ads are often unwanted or inappropriate.
These ads would be appropriate and relevant on public PDFs, linked from a web page. However, the concept of a public, downloadable PDF is quickly becoming outdated. Why would you download something to open in Reader or Preview instead of simply reading it in a web page.
At Increo, we believe public PDFs are best embedded into a website instead of linked (you can embed your own at embedit.in). Perhaps an ad offering around embedded documents may make sense, but as Adobe witnessed, an ad offering built around a out-of-date document delivery system (like downloadable PDFs) is destined for the deadpool.
Annie Ma Said,
January 21, 2009 @ 3:20 pm
Not sure if I agree with you on public PDFs are becoming outdated - I use them to fill out forms (which is unfortunate to do by hand, but sometimes still necessary) or print out maps (e.g., visiting a park).
My experience with printing from a web page is not so great - weird formatting issues, sizing issues, etc.
Does using embedit.in give you the margin/formatting controls of using a PDF?
Tony Cassanego Said,
January 29, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
Annie,
The key here is that you would be able to embed the actual PDF into the page itself. You still produce the PDF with all of your formatting and margin controls, but you gain the benefit of allowing people to see the document within the normal layout of the page. Allowing downloading of the document (for filling in forms, etc) as well as integrated printing support is something that is possible and could be added.
Embedit.in is not removing functionality, only adding it by allowing people to avoid the download of the full PDF and the time required to launch Acrobat or a similar PDF reader. Hope that helps shine some light on our thoughts around the web document!
Annie Ma Said,
January 29, 2009 @ 5:07 pm
Thanks for the clarification! Makes a lot of sense - and hurray for making PDFs easier to use from a developer perspective (to generate and control workflow) and customer perspective (less loadtime, version updating, etc)!